Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science
The Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, part of the National Academies on Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) has released a report that provides guidance on opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative research in science teams. 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.
Over the past six decades, as scientific and social challenges have become more complex and scientific knowledge and methods have advanced, scientists have increasingly joined with colleagues in collaborative research referred to as team science. Today, 90 percent of all science and engineering publications are authored by two or more individuals. The size of authoring teams has expanded as individual scientists, funders, and universities have sought to increase research productivity and investigate multifaceted problems by engaging more individuals. Most articles are now written by 6 to 10 individuals from more than one institution.
Team science has led to scientific breakthroughs that would not otherwise have been possible, such as the discovery of the transistor effect, the development of antiretroviral medications to control AIDS, and confirmation of the existence of dark matter. At the same time, conducting research collaboratively can introduce challenges; for example, while the increasing size of team-based research projects brings greater scientific expertise and more advanced instrumentation to a research question, it also increases the time required for communication and coordination of work. According to the committee that produced the report, if these challenges are not recognized and addressed, projects may fail to achieve their scientific goals.
TRB, like DBASSE, is a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
This Summary Last Modified On: 5/11/2015