By L. Michelle Bennett, Edgar Cardenas and Michael O’Rourke
2. Edgar Cardenas (biography)
3. Michael O’Rourke (biography)
What roles do research and development agencies have in actively preparing research teams to engage productively in collaborative research? Is it enough to require that teams engaging in funded research prepare themselves to collaborate effectively?
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator Program was launched in 2019 to fast track the development of ideas into real-world applications and solutions intended to have substantive societal and economic impact. Building upon basic research and discovery and using a convergent approach, the program accelerates use-inspired research toward impact by funding multidisciplinary teams from a wide range of disciplines and sectors to solve complex societal and economic challenges.
The program has a two-phase funding model in which Phase 1 research teams participate in a nine month “Innovation Curriculum” to aid them in taking their initial idea toward a prototype. The Innovation Curriculum includes human-centered design, communications, storytelling and pitching, and team science. At the end of Phase 1, teams prepare a formal Phase 2 proposal and pitch. Teams that are selected for Phase 2 will continue solution development toward “high-impact deliverables that address societal challenges and enhance the nation’s competitiveness and security.” Fundamental principles of the program include funded teams working quickly, failing fast, and redirecting resources as needed.
Asking teams accustomed to working at their own pace to move extremely quickly stresses them on many levels, including their interpersonal relationships. One way to alleviate this stress is to learn how to work together – specifically, by forming clear norms and processes, they could indeed work faster, better, and smarter scientifically while building strong relationships.
The three of us were engaged by NSF when this program was established in 2019, first as advisers during program development and then later as instructors to work with the first cohort of funded teams. NSF was interested in having their Phase 1 teams develop competency in several areas, including team science, and to this end developed a rigorous Innovation Curriculum in which all Phase 1 teams were required to participate. NSF reasoned that if funded teams could work together more effectively, it would better position them to attain a Phase 2 award that would enable them to successfully address an intractable societal issue.
The NSF Convergence Accelerator Innovation Curriculum includes:
- User Discovery – seeking outsider input on team prototypes
- Team Science – working collaboratively across differences
- Human Centered Design – understanding the needs of relevant individuals
- Communication – engaging, listening, and accepting feedback
- Coaching and Mentorship – receiving entrepreneurial guidance into the business sector
- Pitching – communicating concisely how the solution will solve an unmet societal need.
Ironically, there was no coordination among us as the team science faculty members when we were initially designing and delivering workshops to Phase 1 awardees. Coming together with each other and with NSF for a discussion about the program led to an “Ah ha!” moment when we realized we could better facilitate capacity building by Phase 1 awardees if we also functioned as a team. But, you are wondering, how did the awardees react?
For the great majority of the awardees, intentionally integrating team science into their research projects was a new concept. Many rolled their eyes at requests to purposefully spend time talking about trust, their vision, or developing behavioral norms. It felt unnatural, especially when there was so much SCIENCE to do!
Over the last several years, the collaboration among us as faculty members has evolved into a very robust and unified approach to team science. A greater number of teams understand the value of the team science curriculum and those who are taking it seriously are seeing a return on their investment of time in the form of Phase 2 funding as well as strong, dynamic teams, which is truly where the rubber meets the road for the awardees. The program is also seeing many of its funded researchers applying team science to other research efforts in parallel, engaging the team science faculty for support.
The faculty collaboration has been extremely rewarding. Not only have several collaborative and integrated tools, products, and resources been made available to the funded teams but they have also been shared with the team science community. This includes three blog posts we have published on i2Insights about: (1) the collaboration agreement template; (2) how to handle confidentiality and anonymity transparently within teams; and, (3) how to write confidentiality and anonymity into collaboration agreements.
Where have you seen research and development agencies incorporate team science training into how they are preparing their awardees for cross-disciplinary challenges? If you were to design a curriculum in team science for awardees of a planning grant, what would you make sure you included?
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence).
Biography: L. Michelle Bennett PhD is the Principal and Owner of L.M. Bennett Consulting, LLC, based in Potomac, Maryland, USA, having departed her position as Director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute in 2021. Her main areas of interest are creating collaborative cultures, maximizing creativity and innovation within teams and organizations, and guiding teams in developing strategic approaches to their work and their team relationships.
Biography: Edgar Cardenas PhD is an Associate Director for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing, USA. His work focuses on developing collaborative capacity for cross-disciplinary teams through structured dialogue and collective creativity approaches for strategic planning.
Biography: Michael O’Rourke PhD directs the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) and is Executive Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing, USA, where he is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in AgBioResearch. He is a founding member of TDI, which has been funded by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and several US National Science Foundation programs.
Thank you for sharing this work and your experience in developing collaborative norms with teams early in the award process.
It would be great to see this expanded within NSF programs and with other agencies following the example. NSF funds many other large teams that are not necessarily working in the translational space, but are still expected to conduct effective team science. As you describe in this blog and others, obtaining buy-in to spend time setting expectations and team norms takes some work but is an important early exercise. There is a great opportunity here for NSF to provide a required workshop at the start of an award for team science networks/collaborative projects, and to provide access to tools to the team can utilize as they move forward. One size may not fit all, but providing teams with clear expectations and developing fundamental skills can go a long way.
Thank you for taking the time to comment! We appreciate it. In fact, there are other US National Science Foundation programs that build in team science training for their awardees. These include the Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) program, the Growing Convergence Research program, and the Global Centers program. Other funders also provide dedicated capacity building support for science teams, including the Heliophysics DRIVE Science Centers program at NASA. These programs constitute the first of what we hope will be many waves of global funding agencies who provide dedicated support for collaborative capacity building. It makes sense for a number of reasons, not the least of which is return on investment — if you are going to spend scores of millions of dollars (or pounds or euros or whatever) on collaborative, crossdisciplinary research, why not make sure the teams have the relational support they need to succeed as teams?
Links:
(1) AccelNet: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/accelnet-accelerating-research-through-international-network-network
(2) Growing Convergence Research: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/gcr-growing-convergence-research
(3) Global Centers: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/gc-global-centers
(4) Heliophysics DRIVE Science Centers: https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/drive-science-centers.pdf
And of course, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the US National Institutes of Health, and especially the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which have advocated for and sponsored team science research and practice for decades now. For example, NCI and NCATS have been important drivers in the creation of the science of team science. (See https://www.inscits.org/ .)
It sounds like the innovation curriculum focuses a lot on helping teams develop good norms. This is one of the “6 Team Conditions” for high performing teams according to Hackman, Wageman, and colleagues. Are you by chance using their Team Diagnostic Survey (Wageman et al 2005) to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum?
Hi Bethany, Yes, indeed! Part of what we work with teams on is the “how” to work together – so norms, processes, structures à la Hackman, Wageman, etc… In addition, and just as importantly, we help them understand that their team values, needs, and unspoken assumptions lead to the team actions. In other words a collaborative mindset will lead to collaborative actions and if they are consistent with that mindset and those actions, the agreements they develop will enhance both the team dynamic and the science they are doing. (see previous post https://i2insights.org/2024/07/23/collaborative-mindset-for-teamwork/ )
We are not using the Hackman/Wageman survey – A fabulous idea and beyond the current scope of our work. Thanks!
Thank you for taking the time to comment, Bethany — we appreciate it! To complement Michelle’s reply, I wanted to speak to the question of assessment. To date, we have relied upon qualitative data collected by the NSF Convergence Accelerator program from the teams they fund to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum. Over the five year run of the program, these data have helped the program and the Team Science faculty make a number of critical decisions about what to include and what not to include in the curriculum. This “continuous improvement” approach has yielded the curriculum we describe in the post. As Michelle indicates, a study of the sort you suggest is beyond the scope of our work, but it certainly could be pursued. The challenge with this program in particular is its accelerated nature — the teams have very little time to make a lot of progress, and so there is little bandwidth for anything else.
Thank you for writing about this incredible program.
It is pretty remarkable that the NSF teams you have worked with who have made efforts to integrate Team Science into their work together are the ones who end up forming more cohesive units and who continue to get funded. I envision that these two metrics of success will potentially then foster greater scientific innovation as well as contribute to a robust team culture with strong team dynamics. This is a clear indication of the power of Team Science and its impact on teams.
I also enjoyed reading about your ‘ah ha’ moment – an example of Team Science in action at multiple levels of a program or organization!
Thank you for taking the time to comment! We are grateful. The program and its leadership has emphasized from the start just how central team science is to project success. This is one of the things that has made it possible for us to do our work — we have very strong support from the program leadership. Teams that don’t buy into the Innovation Curriculum have a difficult time meeting the benchmarks that must be met to secure Phase II funding.