Professional Documents
Culture Documents
T eam S cience
“”
have as a major goal “… to develop teams of
investigators from various fields of research
A Multi-Level Systems Perspective for the who can take scientific discoveries in the
laboratory and turn them into treatments
Science of Team Science and strategies for patients in the clinic” (5).
The National Science Foundation invites
Katy Börner,1* Noshir Contractor,2 Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski,3 Stephen M. projects on Cyber-Enabled Discovery and
Fiore,4 Kara L. Hall,5 Joann Keyton,6 Bonnie Spring,7 Daniel Stokols,8 William Innovation that place an “emphasis on bold
multidisciplinary activities that, through
Trochim,9 Brian Uzzi10
computational thinking, promise radical,
Published 15 September 2010; Volume 2 Issue 49 49cm24
paradigm-changing research findings.” The
This Commentary describes recent research progress and professional developments in MacArthur, Robert Wood Johnson, and
the study of scientific teamwork, an area of inquiry termed the “science of team science” W.T. Grant Foundations all support inter-
(SciTS, pronounced “sahyts”). It proposes a systems perspective that incorporates a disciplinary research networks. The Na-
mixed-methods approach to SciTS that is commensurate with the conceptual, method- tional Academies’ KECK Futures Initiative
ological, and translational complexities addressed within the SciTS field. The theoreti- promotes interdisciplinary research related
cally grounded and practically useful framework is intended to integrate existing and to science, engineering, and medicine. At
communications, social science, transla- dispositions, and education; and how such
“”
when (temporal), where (geospatial), what
tional research, complex systems, technol- factors predispose them to particular types (topical), with whom (network), how (pro-
ogy, business and management, research of collaboration. Micro-level studies can be cess), and why (modeling) questions. Table
development, biomedical and life sciences, quantitative and, if considering network 1 presents key insights from studies apply-
and physical sciences. The increasing inter- analyses, involve many attributes for nodes ing these differing levels of analysis.
est in professional gatherings centered on and linkages. Other methods include indi- Each level of team science involves a set
SciTS combined with recent progress in vidual-level analysis of researchers partici- of challenges. Macro-level challenges ad-
SciTS research and practice suggest that pating within teams in which members are dress organizational change and the exist-
this community is coalescing into its own queried about their experiences as team ing culture that either stifles or encourages
area of inquiry. members (13, 14). collaboration and interdisciplinarity. Chal-
Each of these levels addresses different lenges at the meso-level involve explicat-
MULTI-LEVEL, MIXED-METHODS issues that can be roughly classified into ing the group dynamics emerging in team
APPROACH FOR SCITS science as well as how to better understand
The burgeoning field of SciTS can serve as a and train teamwork in science teams. At
transformative melting pot of existing the- the micro-level (the individual level), but
ories and scientific techniques. We propose tightly intertwined with the macro- and
a multi-level, mixed-methods approach meso-level issues, are issues pertaining to
communications, and the composition of and grant awards, are not comprehensive-
the team contribute to team process and ly collected across the sciences. The data
outcomes. Such approaches can use net- studied are typically published in English,
work analysis—the representation of data although science is international and mul-
as nodes and their interlinkages—to study tilingual. Furthermore, the unification of
the evolution and impact of (social) net- data records (such as the identification of
work structures at varied time scales or an- all papers by one scholar as stored in differ-
alyze the specific quality and type of inter- Fig. 1. Multi-level, mixed-methods approach ent databases) and the interlinkage of col-
action via examination of communication to SciTS. Team science can be studied at differ- lections of data (such as the retrieval of all
context and patterns within teams (12). ent levels using different approaches. Together, papers that were supported by one funding
Third, “micro-level” research considers the the insights derived from these studies are worth award) proves difficult because no unique
individuals within the team; their training, more than the sum of their parts. identifiers are available.