Growth of Team Science: Challenges and Opportunities

The National Academies recently released a report titled “Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science.”  This presentation will provide an overview on the report as it is relevant to education.  It will summarize changes to the practice of science, particularly the growth of team-based collaboration as an integral component of the research enterprise. It will also cover some of the challenges of team-based research such as team member diversity, the need for deep knowledge integration, the potential for goal misalignment, conducting research with very large groups of scientists, and geographic dispersion of team members.   These challenges can be addressed through application of research on science and non-science teams.  Specifically, those engaged in collaborative research can enhance the effectiveness of science teams through interventions relevant to team composition, professional development of team members, and leadership.  Suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness of geographically dispersed teams and for aligning university promotion and tenure criteria with collaborative research will also be covered.