By Gemma Jiang

What is a good way for researchers in large cross-disciplinary science initiatives, who may not know each other well, to generate viable project ideas?
This blog post introduces a field-tested “double helix” process that leverages the benefits of idea generation by a large group and idea refinement in small groups.
This double helix process is most helpful in large cross-disciplinary science initiatives that meet at least one of the following three characteristics:
- Tackling wicked problems with both scientific and societal significance
- Requiring deep integration across multiple disciplines that will eventually lead to new meta-disciplines
- Consisting of more than 20 core research members.