Why was the Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology so successful?

It was not by increasing administrative staff or new programme oriented funding research as many German research managers believe. It was by scientific (not primarily cultural) diversity

The LMB sets a coherent culture by promoting scientific diversity among its staff, encouraging the exchange of knowledge and ideas and valuing scientific synergies between different areas of research… It encourages the recruitment of groups with diverse but aligned interests that are complementary.

What did we do instead in Germany? We increased competition among groups and develop more hierarchical structures while the LMB is

promoting shared values and common aims helps researchers to feel part of the LMB community and proud to belong to it, fostering long-term loyalty. The LMB has always had a non-hierarchical structure — one in which emphasis lies in the quality of the argument, rather than in the status of the proponent.

So, indeed the incentives are different… While we laudate the number of external EU grants a group leader has been securing, LMB does the opposite

… resources are allocated in ways that encourage innovative collaboration between internal teams and divisions. For example, limits are set for research groups to bid for external grants, because these tend to have short-term, results-oriented requirements that might not align with the LMB’s longer-term ambitions.