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Announcing SciTS 2022 Workshops

We are proud to announce the 2022 SciTS workshops for Monday, August 1, 2022.   

SciTS Workshop & Interactive Sessions Day. 

  • Monday’s workshops and interactive sessions have limited capacity, so register early to help secure your spot!
  • Every registrant will have a chance to participate in at least one workshop.   You have the option to select a second workshop, admission into the workshop is pending availability and not guaranteed.
  • Workshops have limited capacity, commiserate with the workshop format and goals
  • Please consider the scheduled workshop time (Monday morning vs Monday afternoon) and your availability when selecting.
  • In addition, interactive sessions, discussions, networking sessions, and special interest topics will be offered  throughout the day on Monday to ensure a variety of available programming to match your interests.   Please select “Networking & Discussion Sessions” to participate.

Morning Sessions:

Team Science 101

Hosts: Kara L. Hall, National Cancer Institute, Heidi Baumgartner, Stanford University

Featured speakers: Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University; Kara L. Hall, National Cancer Institute, Maritza Salazar, University of California Irvine; Amanda Vogel, National Center for Advancing Translational Science

Team science is a broad-based collaborative effort to address intellectual, scientific, and societal challenges that require leveraging strengths and expertise of specialists in different fields. Increasingly, scientists across many disciplines and settings are engaged in team-based research initiatives. Funding agencies and programs have also begun to codify team science as an outcome of large-scale grant opportunities. The success of any one team science proposal is influenced by a variety of contextual and environmental influences as well as researchers’ and educators’ ability to define and to evaluate indicators of quality and success. Therefore, understanding team science from multiple perspectives is necessary to improve science team practices for further discovery and innovation.  

The goal of this workshop is to provide conference participants new to the science of team science (SciTS) with a foundation for understanding the field’s history, terminology, approaches, and research findings. The workshop also provides a broad overview to help participants learn about practical applications of SciTS research.  Our goal is to enrich participants’ ability to engage in the conference sessions and networking opportunities as well as enhance their capacity to support and to conduct team science.  

By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to: 

    • Outline key milestones that benchmark growth of the SciTS field 
    • Gain familiarity with key terms and definitions 
    • Describe contextual, structural, and procedural factors that influence efficacy of science teams  
    • Identify key elements for launching and planning for successful collaborations
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Collaborating with Evaluators in Team Science (Bethany Laursen, Laursen Evaluation & Design, LLC, Michigan State University; Caroline Freitag, Evaluation Specialist with the Program Evaluation Core at Northwestern University)

Evaluation is crucial for understanding what works and why in team science. Research projects might be evaluated in terms of their team process, their deliverables, their outcomes, and more. As the science of team science matures, standards for strong evaluation continue to rise. Funders often require formal evaluation of projects, and societal groups increasingly expect transparent, evaluative project summaries. Many teams therefore hire a professional evaluator. But, to researchers with little to no training in formal evaluation, evaluators and their work often feel mysterious, perhaps even a little intimidating. This disorientation can hinder collaboration between researchers and evaluators, making the evaluation less effective and enjoyable

Through mini-lectures and hands-on activities, this workshop will dispel the mystery surrounding evaluation by orienting attendees to evaluation from four perspectives: 1) their own thoughts and feelings about evaluation, 2) the basic logic of evaluation, 3) the professional backgrounds and positionality of evaluators, and 4) the collaborative relationship with evaluators in different contexts. 

 

Network Leadership in Convergence Research Teams: An emergent model (Gemma Jiang, Colorado State University; Jeni Cross, Colorado State University; Jenny Grabmeier, Ohio State University; Anne Mook, Colorado State University)

This workshop will share an emergent model of providing comprehensive, long-term team science support for multi-year and multi-institute convergence science projects. The model was developed to support large (2-8 dozen members) teams funded to create transdisciplinary institutes and research consortia. Developed in the context of one specific large NSF science initiative, experiences, and lessons from this emergent model are applicable to other science teams of different scales and funding sources.  The specific objectives include: 

    • Recognize how social network analysis can accelerate team development
    •  Participants will be able to identify and classify the structures and dynamics of teams
    • Participants will discover strategies to improve the structure and dynamics of teams
    • Explore a suite of interventions guided by the philosophy of leading teams as knowledge networks. All the interventions have been field tested in different convergence research teams and fall under the umbrella of “adaptive spaces”
    • Participants will learn specific intervention techniques such as holding ideation workshops to support new idea generation, hosting conversation spaces to develop affective relationships, and delivering collaboration capacity building workshops based on team needs identified through observations and interviews
 

ITD Toolkits Workshop - tdMOOC, td-net toolbox and SHAPE-ID toolkit (Christian Pohl, ETH Zurich)

In interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, researchers of different disciplines jointly coproduce knowledge on socially relevant issues. Such knowledge co-production comes with challenges for those who fund it, review it or carry it out. This workshop will introduce three online resources are available to support such research.  

A number of online resources are available to support such research such as the Swiss td-net‚ an open online course (https://transdisciplinarity.ch/en/kompetenzaufbau/tdmooc), td-net‚ toolbox for coproducing knowledge (www.transdisciplinarity.ch/toolbox) or the European SHAPE-ID toolkit (https://www.shapeidtoolkit.eu/). The workshop introduces these three resources in which the presenters helped to develop.

Participants will:

    • Discuss td-net MOOC Partnering for Change: Link Research to Societal Challenges‚ and can get a flavor by exploring elements 
    • Get to know the SHAPE-ID toolkit. It offers a broad range of resources for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in general and for the inclusion of Arts and Humanities in particular. Workshop participants will take a guided tour through the SHAPE-ID Toolkit.  They will explore in small groups one of the Top Ten Tips, e.g. for evaluating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary proposals.
    • Participants will get to know td-net toolbox for coproducing knowledge. This toolbox compiles hands on workshop methods to overcome specific challenges of jointly producing knowledge in heterogeneous teams. Often implicit assumptions of researchers or other societal actors hinder collaboration. Most tools in the td-net toolbox serve to uncover such assumptions.
    • The workshop will end with a discussion of the Most Significant Change Method, collecting participants main insights.

 Tools for Talking the Same Language Across Disciplines and Professions - (Sawsan Khuri, Collaborative Capacities, UK)

We know that technical language differs across academic disciplines and professional sectors. The organizers might often provide a glossary and hope for the best. However, increasingly we are seeing emotive language being used, particularly in transdisciplinary work in environmental science for example. We found there is a lot to be gained by allowing the space for this and then bringing the meeting back to the science at hand. In this workshop we will explore what this means and demonstrate some of the tools that we have used to arrive at a standard vocabulary for stakeholder engagement meetings of various types, including multi- inter- and trans-disciplinary research.

The objectives and expected outcomes of this workshop are such that participants will:

    • Understand the scope of language barriers in cross-disciplinary research.
    •  Explore and share best practice for dealing with technical language in cross-disciplinary settings.
    • Provide feedback on tools we have developed for better communication across disciplines and professions.

 

 

 

Afternoon Sessions:

Convergence Research Development: Integrating Team Science into National Science Foundation Center Proposals (Theresa Lant, Pace University; Camille Coley, University of San Francisco; Susan Day, SDW Research Development Services) 

This interactive workshop will take participants through a systematic approach to inclusive team science and leadership practices designed to enhance convergence research proposals.  Participants will gain an understanding of inclusive team science best practices and the organizational infrastructure and policies needed to support these practices.

In 2019, the National Science Foundation (NSF) mandated convergence strategies in Gen 4 Engineering Research Center proposals and integrative strategies in Science and Technology Center proposals. More recently, NSF has added Growing Convergence Research to its Big Idea portfolio.  To be competitive, convergence research proposals must demonstrate a robust approach to facilitating transdisciplinary teams, diversity, and inclusion.  Participants will learn about proposal development and strategies for integrating inclusive team science measures into system planning and management for generally required components of convergence research proposals. The workshop will provide a set of team science resources, center planning, and management tools. 

Attendees will learn: 

    • Team science strategies for NSF center and convergence research proposals. 
    • How to integrate team science, diversity, and inclusion measures into required components of convergence research proposals.
    • Considerations for developing sustainable team science practices as part of a research system planning and management process. 

Collaboration Planning Facilitator Training (Betsy Rolland; Patrick Kelly; Whitney Sweeney, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Engaging in Collaboration Planning has the potential to increase team effectiveness by helping teams build trust; develop processes to address conflict before it happens; and set up coordination, communication, and collaboration systems that support strong team functioning. As team science support infrastructure, Collaboration Planning can also help organizations increase the quality and quantity of team science at their institutions. In this workshop, we will train participants to deliver this evidence-informed Collaboration Planning intervention with their own teams. 

During the Training, the Facilitator will identify their organizational goals for Collaboration Planning with their teams and learn to tailor the Collaboration Planning session for each team. Participants will be invited to join both our Collaboration Planning Community of Practice where Facilitators can share their experiences working with teams and continue to develop their Facilitator skills.  Broad dissemination of this Collaboration Planning intervention advances the SciTS field by providing a model of intervention development, testing, dissemination and implementation, as well as providing a standard, tested approach to Collaboration Planning that can be implemented without a substantial investment of resources.

 

Mindset Matters: Using the TEMS to Launch and Support Teams (L. Michelle Bennett, LMBennett Consulting, LLC) 

This workshop is to introduce the TEMS model and provide an interactive opportunity for participants to explore putting the model into practice in a team setting.

Our mindset (core values and assumptions) underlies what we do and what we say which in turn impacts our results. Similarly, shared team and organizational mindset (i.e., culture) drives the results they achieve as well. It plays a huge role in how we design our teams and organizations and, whether we realize it or not, the policies, structures, and processes put in place reflect the designers’ mindset in use. We recently shared our Team Effectiveness Model for Science (TEMS) with the research community. The model emphasizes the opportunity for teams to adopt shared values and norms that will create three results: increased performance, stronger relationships, and improved well-being. This includes establishing trust and psychological safety and enhancing team science productivity.  During this workshop we will discuss: 

    • The mutual learning approach
    • The TEMS model, which builds on the Mutual Learning approach
    • The links between mindset, norms, structures/processes, and result
    • The method for designing and implementing team values, norms and team processes to achieve the desired results

 

Facilitating Effectiveness in Interdisciplinary Research: A Multiteam Systems Approach - (Marissa Shuffler, Sydney Begerowski, Dorothy Ruth Carter, Clemson University) 

Research produced by teams is becoming more common and more impactful in contrast to individual production. As science teams continue to rise in both popularity and size, there is growing evidence that suggests team science functions as a multi-level phenomenon known as a multiteam system.

A multiteam system (MTS) refers to two or more teams that work together interdependently to achieve a superordinate goal.  In interdisciplinary research, component teams are likely to represent collaborative entities (e.g., clinical team, academic university partners, practitioners) that work interdependently to research the defined state of interest. Component team members will need to collaborate both within their own team as well as between other teams. There is a significant need to not only train researchers on the benefits of an MTS work structure, but also raise awareness of best practices in MTS leadership in order to maximize science team and MTS effectiveness

The goal of this workshop is to help interdisciplinary researchers understand team dynamics in the context of science teams and MTS and provide practical guidance for facilitating effectiveness.  More specifically, attendees of this workshop will be able to:

    • Define an MTS structure and apply it to interdisciplinary research.
    • Recognize key advantages and challenges of a science MTS structure.
    • Implement tools and best practices to facilitate effectiveness that combat common barriers to success.