Team science is an integral competency for the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator Program
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?
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.