Team Science Presentation

Vice Provost for Research, Mary Lidstrom has pioneered professional development workshops and consulted extensively with teams interested in setting up interdisciplinary research centers. Below are excerpts from her invited lecture at the National Academies Keck Futures Initiatives Genomics conference held in November 2005.

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• Research Paradigms
• Characteristics of scientific problems that require a team approach
• Guiding principles for team science
• Examples of team research groups
• Models or paradigms for team science
• Common needs
• Factors that make team science paradigms succeed or fail
• Issues of concern for team science
• Examples from the University of Washington
• Academic Structure
• Administrative Strategies
• Center Directors Handbook
• Summary

Research Paradigms

Single investigator

• Focused problem
• Small lab technology
• Highly successful, still the mainstay of science and technology research

Team

• Complexity
• Urgency
• Shared need/interest

Characteristics of scientific problems that require a team approach

• Urgency and complexity of scientific problems today often dictate the need for a team-based approach
• Different disciplines/expertise required to solve a problem; impetus is shared goal
  • project-oriented
  • product-oriented
• Different approaches required to solve a problem; impetus is shared system or set of problems
• Common facility/instrumentation/database required to solve different problems; impetus is shared approach
• Grand challenges for which a critical mass does not exist; impetus is intellectual challenge and potential high pay-off
• Combinations of the above

Guiding principles for team science

• Individual creativity should be preserved while taking advantage of the synergy of team approaches
• Leadership, management structure, and communication are essential elements of team research
• Integrity, trust, and respect lay the groundwork for effective team research
• All teams need an impetus, a motivation that brings the team together and encourages collaboration

Examples of team research groups

• Small teams
• Centers
• Consortia
• Institutes
• Networks

Models or paradigms for team science

• No “one size fits all” solution
• Variables:
  • Size: number of investigators and participants
  • Location of participants: co-located or distributed
  • Goals: project-oriented, product-oriented
  • Structure: Director(s), advisory boards, staff, budgetary allocation
• Issues vary depending on the specific set of variables
• Different from single research groups: peer-peer management
• Critical to ensure that all investigators understand and agree to abide by the guidelines for the team
• Leaders must get buy-in from the participants at the time the proposal is written or the team is set up
• Most sensitive issues
  • Resource allocation/reallocation
  • Time commitment
  • Authorship
  • IP

Common needs

• Administrative support
  • Small teams: may be provided by unit administrative staff
  • Larger teams: need full-time, dedicated, and skilled staff
• Support structure for young faculty
  • Mechanism for individual publication
  • Seed funds
  • Access to special resources
  • Mentoring
• Administrative plan: take care of problems
• Evaluation/assessment plan: set goals, measure success
• IP management plan
• Phase-in and phase-out mechanisms: ramp-up period; finite lifetime

Factors that make team science paradigms succeed or fail

• Leadership: vision, enthusiasm, commitment, true team spirit
• Communication: time, effort, technology, training
• Management structure: integrate leadership and communication
• Team-friendly environment: integrity, trust, respect, sharing
• Institutional commitment: space, administrative support, faculty investment
• Common to all models

Issues of concern for team science

• Young investigators and career development
• Intellectual property management
• Metrics for success/failure
• Training environment
• Richness vs. negative impact on graduate student and post-doctoral training
• Phase-in and phase-out
• Longer lead time to develop team and become productive
• Cultural differences, including differences between academia and industry
• Administrative burden to highly productive faculty

Examples from the University of Washington

• University of Washington
  • Large public institution
  • Strong commitment to undergraduate and graduate education
• College of Engineering
  • Dean: Denice Denton (now Chancellor, UC Santa Cruz)
  • $85M/yr in funded research
  • 10-15% of total is in team projects

Academic Structure

Departmental towers connected by interdisciplinary initiatives

Click to Enlarge

Administrative Strategies

Fiscal Policy

• Individual subaccounts (money follows effort)
  • Credit to each investigator
  • Indirect cost return to each department
• Partial indirect cost return to center from “core” budget; partial to administering department
  • Provides flexible funds to the team for administrative support
  • Rewards department for housing the team
  • Reduces disincentives for department

Dean

• Promotion and Tenure Policy: value collaborative efforts
  • Balance between individual and team science
  • Buy-in from P&T committees
• Invest in team efforts
  • Revenue stream from center activities directed back to team science activities
  • Set-aside venture funds specifically to stimulate team science
    • $10,000 start-up funds for a seminar series, workshop, etc.
    • $5000 for proposal writing
    • Up to $200,000 one-time infrastructure grants for interdisciplinary research
• Provide matching
  • Emphasis on senior administrative staff
  • Fund infrastructure (equipment)

Leadership

• Problem: visionary faculty often not good managers
• Workshops for Center Directors
  • Support group for standing Directors and faculty interested in developing centers
  • Topics
    • Administrative structures
    • Time management
    • People management
    • Resource reallocation
    • Advisory boards
• Handbook for Center Directors

Center Directors Handbook

• College Philosophy on Team Research
• Roles and Responsibilities of Center Directors: Leadership, Communication, Management
• Models of Center Structures
• Managing Faculty
• Team Building
• Hiring, Performance evaluation, Termination
• Advisory Boards
• Working with Funding Agency
• Working with Other Institutions
• Additional Resources
  • Setting up a web site to maximize access
  • Examples of meeting schedules
  • Examples of administrative support requirements
  • Sample task planning chart
  • Sample text of an administrative plan
  • Sample job descriptions
  • Sample evaluation form

Summary

• Team science can build bridges, connect units, add richness to training environment, solve problems not solvable any other way
• Real issues must be addressed upfront
• Involves agencies, investigators, universities