Enhancing The Effectiveness Of Team Science

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of scientific research. The growing scale of science has been accompanied by a shift toward collaborative research, referred to as "team science." Scientific research is increasingly conducted by small teams and larger groups rather than individual investigators, but the challenges of collaboration can slow these teams' progress in achieving their scientific goals. How does a team-based approach work, and how can universities and research institutions support teams? Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science synthesizes and integrates the available research to provide guidance on assembling the science team; leadership, education and professional development for science teams and groups. It also examines institutional and organizational structures and policies to support science teams and identifies areas where further research is needed to help science teams and groups achieve their scientific and translational goals. This report offers major public policy recommendations for science research agencies and policymakers, as well as recommendations for individual scientists, disciplinary associations, and research universities. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science will be of interest to university research administrators, team science leaders, science faculty, and graduate and postdoctoral students.

Collaborations that integrate diverse perspectives are critical to addressing many of our complex scientific and societal problems. Yet those engaged in cross-disciplinary team science often face institutional barriers and collaborative challenges. Strategies for Team Science Success offers readers a comprehensive set of actionable strategies for reducing barriers and overcoming challenges and includes practical guidance for how to implement effective team science practices. More than 100 experts--including scientists, administrators, and funders from a wide range of disciplines and professions-- explain evidence-based principles, highlight state-of the-art strategies, tools, and resources, and share first-person accounts of how they’ve applied them in their own successful team science initiatives. While many examples draw from cross-disciplinary team science initiatives in the health domain, the handbook is designed to be useful across all areas of science. Strategies for Team Science Success will inspire and enable readers to embrace cross-disciplinary team science, by articulating its value for accelerating scientific progress, and by providing practical strategies for success. Scientists, administrators, funders, and others engaged in team science will also leave equipped to develop new policies and practices needed to keep pace in our rapidly changing scientific landscape. Scholars across the Science of Team Science (SciTS), management, organizational, behavioral and social sciences, public health, philosophy, and information technology, among other areas of scholarship, will find inspiration for new research directions to continue advancing cross-disciplinary team science.

Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations Today’s team-based organizations face an unprecedented range of challenges. Many teams reflect the diversity of its members which vary in experience, education, and training. To add to the complexity, teams often include people who are not in the same room together, are geographically dispersed, and are connected only by electronic media. Developing and Enhancing Teamwork in Organizations is a volume in the SIOP Professional Practice Series that brings together leading edge practitioners and academics who share their knowledge about effective teamwork. The book contains evidence-based guidelines designed to offer practitioners advice, recommendations, and strategies for developing and sustaining teams that consistently function at peak performance. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this important resource covers team-based performance approaches from a wide range of activities and industries. For example, the volume explores team work in the NASA organization supporting astronauts, superior performance in football, and also in the military and industry. In addition, the contributors include information concerning healthcare organizations and their delivery of vital services. Each illustrative example reviews the lessons learned and the principles and the findings that were most influential when composing and managing a particular work team. International in scope, the volume clearly shows what it takes for team-based organizations to excel in the 21st Century. A division of the American Psychological Association and established in 1945, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) is the premier association for professionals charged with enhancing human well-being and performance in organizational and work settings. SIOP has more than 7,000 members.

Why collaborations in STEM fields succeed or fail and how to ensure success Once upon a time, it was the lone scientist who achieved brilliant breakthroughs. No longer. Today, science is done in teams of as many as hundreds of researchers who may be scattered across continents. These collaborations can be powerful, but they also demand new ways of thinking. The Strength in Numbers illuminates the nascent science of team science by synthesizing the results of the most far-reaching study to date on collaboration among university scientists. Drawing on a national survey with responses from researchers at more than one hundred universities, archival data, and extensive interviews with scientists and engineers in over a dozen STEM disciplines, Barry Bozeman and Jan Youtie establish a framework for characterizing different collaborations and their outcomes, and lay out what they have found to be the gold-standard approach: consultative collaboration management. The Strength in Numbers is an indispensable guide for scientists interested in maximizing collaborative success.

Enhancing Communication & Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research, edited by Michael O'Rourke, Stephen Crowley, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, and J. D. Wulfhorst, is a volume of previously unpublished, state-of-the-art chapters on interdisciplinary communication and collaboration written by leading figures and promising junior scholars in the world of interdisciplinary research, education, and administration. Designed to inform both teaching and research, this innovative book covers the spectrum of interdisciplinary activity, offering a timely emphasis on collaborative interdisciplinary work. The book’s four main parts focus on theoretical perspectives, case studies, communication tools, and institutional perspectives, while a final chapter ties together the various strands that emerge in the book and defines trend-lines and future research questions for those conducting work on interdisciplinary communication.

The future security, economic growth, and competitiveness of the United States depend on its capacity to innovate. Major sources of innovative capacity are the new knowledge and trained students generated by U.S. research universities. However, many of the complex technical and societal problems the United States faces cannot be addressed by the traditional model of individual university research groups headed by a single principal investigator. Instead, they can only be solved if researchers from multiple institutions and with diverse expertise combine their efforts. The National Science Foundation (NSF), among other federal agencies, began to explore the potential of such center-scale research programs in the 1970s and 1980s; in many ways, the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) program is its flagship program in this regard. The ERCs are "interdisciplinary, multi-institutional centers that join academia, industry, and government in partnership to produce transformational engineered systems and engineering graduates who are adept at innovation and primed for leadership in the global economy. To ensure that the ERCs continue to be a source of innovation, economic development, and educational excellence, A New Vision for Center-Based Engineering Research explores the future of center-based engineering research, the skills needed for effective center leadership, and opportunities to enhance engineering education through the centers.

Incorporating the latest research throughout, Daniel Levi’s Fifth Edition of Group Dynamics for Teams explains the basic psychological concepts of group dynamics, focusing on their application with teams in the workplace. Grounded in psychology research and a practical focus on organizational behavior issues, this engaging book helps readers understand and more effectively participate in teams.