Theoretical perspectives on team science
The Ecology of Team Science: Understanding Contextual Influences on Transdisciplinary Collaboration

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Abstract

Increased public and private investments in large-scale team science initiatives over the past two decades have underscored the need to better understand how contextual factors influence the effectiveness of transdisciplinary scientific collaboration. Toward that goal, the findings from four distinct areas of research on team performance and collaboration are reviewed: (1) social psychological and management research on the effectiveness of teams in organizational and institutional settings; (2) studies of cyber-infrastructures (i.e., computer-based infrastructures) designed to support transdisciplinary collaboration across remote research sites; (3) investigations of community-based coalitions for health promotion; and (4) studies focusing directly on the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of scientific collaboration within transdisciplinary research centers and training programs. The empirical literature within these four domains reveals several contextual circumstances that either facilitate or hinder team performance and collaboration. A typology of contextual influences on transdisciplinary collaboration is proposed as a basis for deriving practical guidelines for designing, managing, and evaluating successful team science initiatives.

Introduction

The growing interest and investment in transdisciplinary team science over the past 2 decades are reflected in the establishment of several large-scale research and training initiatives by both public agencies and private foundations.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 This increasing commitment to transdisciplinary collaboration in science and training stems from the inherent complexity of contemporary public health, environmental, political, and policy challenges (e.g., cancer, heart disease, diabetes, AIDS, global warming, inter-group conflict, terrorism), and the realization that an integration of multiple disciplinary perspectives is required to better understand and ameliorate these problems.8, 9, 10, 11, 12

The expanded investment in team science and training has prompted greater demands for evidence that they be cost effective and justifiable in terms of their scientific, training, clinical, policy, and health outcomes, especially relative to smaller-scale, discipline-based research projects.13, 14, 15, 16 Team science initiatives typically entail substantial multiyear commitments of monetary, human, and material resources.17 Critics of team science contend that its value-added contributions to scholarship, training, and public health may not be evident for several decades and are exceedingly difficult to calibrate in rigorous experimental fashion relative to those yielded by smaller-scale, unidisciplinary projects (e.g., single-investigator NIH R01 grants).18, 19

Even proponents of team science initiatives note that they are highly labor intensive; often conflict-prone; and require substantial preparation, practice, and trust among team members to ensure a modicum of success.20, 21, 22 The labor-intensity of collaborative research programs may pose unique risks to young scholars who are particularly concerned about establishing strong scientific identities within their chosen fields.23 Consistent with these concerns, a growing number of studies focusing on the processes and outcomes of transdisciplinary scientific collaboration suggest that the effectiveness of team initiatives is highly variable and depends greatly on certain contextual circumstances and collaborative readiness factors.24, 25, 26 It is becoming increasingly clear that investments in team science are not uniformly cost effective, although they can be enormously valuable under the right circumstances (e.g., the cross-disciplinary collaboration of Watson and Crick on the structure of DNA, the Kennedy Administration's commitment to land a crew on the moon by 1969).27, 28

Considering the varying levels of effectiveness that have been achieved by transdisciplinary teams and research centers within the health sciences, it is important to better understand the contextual determinants of collaborative success as a basis for knowing when (and when not) to invest in large-scale team science initiatives.29 In short, investments in transdisciplinary team science and training must become more strategic and cost effective in the coming years, especially in light of recent budget cuts, resource shortages, and the importance of ensuring that research investments will yield scientific and translational advances that directly ameliorate population health and environmental problems at national and global levels.30

Section snippets

Mapping the Ecology of Team Science

To establish a more-strategic basis for designing, managing, and evaluating team science initiatives (and deciding when to opt instead for smaller-scale, unidisciplinary approaches to health problems), this review examines the ecology of team science, or the complex web of intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, institutional, physical environmental, technologic (e.g., cyber), and other political and societal factors that influence the effectiveness of transdisciplinary collaboration in

Generic and Project-Specific Criteria for Gauging the Effectiveness of Transdisciplinary Collaborations

The contrasting definitions of cross-disciplinary research (e.g., multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity) presented by Rosenfield and the NIH Roadmap initiative (and the alternative criteria for judging the effectiveness of transdisciplinary collaborations) are generic in the sense that they are intended to apply to broad categories of similarly organized initiatives and programs (e.g., National Cancer Institute transdisciplinary research and training centers).

Review of Empirical Research on Team Performance and Transdisciplinary Collaboration

This analysis of contextual factors that influence the success of transdisciplinary collaborations is guided by empirical evidence drawn from at least four areas of scientific research: (1) social psychological and management research on the effectiveness of teams in organizational and institutional settings; (2) studies of cyber-infrastructures (i.e., computer-based infrastructures) designed to support transdisciplinary scientific collaboration; (3) field investigations of community-based

Social Psychology and Management Research on the Effectiveness of Teams

Experimental studies of group dynamics and interpersonal processes (e.g., leadership, conformity, conflict) conducted in laboratory settings have been a focal area of social psychological research over the past six decades.42, 43, 44, 47, 48 As concerns have grown in recent years about improving collaboration among members of community-based organizations, field research on teams working in and across specific organizational settings has expanded as a basis for better understanding how

Team Effectiveness in Remote Collaboration

Remote collaboration refers to those arrangements in which team members are geographically dispersed. Spatially (and often temporally and culturally) separated teams of workers collaborate on scientific or managerial projects through the Internet and by using other information and communication technologies. New terms such as scientific collaboratories (the terms virtual teams and distributed collaboration are also found in the literature)46 have come to represent network-based facilities and

Team Effectiveness in Community Coalitions

Community coalitions between scientists and practitioners translate scientific findings into interventions and programs that promote public health and social justice. These collaborations are usually inter-organizational in scope. The scale and complexity of transdisciplinary collaboration among researchers and practitioners increase further as the goals become broader-gauged with the design, implementation, and evaluation of health programs and policies spanning local, regional, national, and

Studies of Transdisciplinary Science and Training Programs

Research on the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of scientific collaboration in transdisciplinary research centers and teams has grown steadily since the mid-1990s. Detailed reviews of these studies are available elsewhere.10, 11, 13, 22, 25 The existing literature on the science of team science consists primarily of qualitative case studies employing structured interviews, surveys, and observations of collaborative activities among researchers as they occur in offices and laboratories.

Conceptualizing the Ecology of Transdisciplinary Team Science and Collaborative Effectiveness

The review of empirical literature on team performance presented in the preceding sections highlights the importance of certain factors, identified across multiple research domains, that either enhance or hinder the effectiveness of transdisciplinary collaborations. For example, the crucial roles played by exemplary leaders of transdisciplinary initiatives, the importance of establishing interpersonal trust and respect among team members, and the organizational and technologic aspects of

Designing and Managing the Ecology of Team Science to Enhance Collaborative Effectiveness in Transdisciplinary Research and Training

This concluding section focuses on an important issue raised at the outset of the article—namely, the need to better understand the contextual determinants of collaborative success as a basis for making future investments in large-scale team science initiatives more strategic (i.e., scientifically productive and financially cost effective). Having reviewed the empirical evidence for contextual determinants of team performance across four distinct areas of research, this study addresses below

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