Research Collaboration Network for Managing Collaborative Research Centers

在这个项目中，主要研究者将建立一个跨学科的学者和从业者社区，他们有兴趣研究和改善协作分布式科学研究中心的管理。这些中心是当代科学的基础，规模不断扩大，范围不断多样化，但缺乏对管理实践的系统探索，使中心能够有效运作和持续创新。协作研究中心与其他组织不同，并受到各种独特的压力，包括与基础设施创新，分布式软件开发和虚拟组织相关的压力。虽然有一个广泛的证据基础，可用于指导不同形式的组织管理，但目前还不清楚管理研究和实践的哪些要素适用于这种特殊形式的组织，也没有场所供中心管理人员分享和学习如何提高效率和效果。通过一系列的专题研讨会，该项目将允许中心管理人员分享什么工作，并获得更有效地管理他们的中心的想法;反过来，组织学者将调查如何组织奖学金的元素可以应用到这些中心的管理。此外，我们还将确定如何最好地传播与中心管理相关的培训、最佳实践、基准测试和可操作的研究，并探索如何随着时间的推移维持这样的社区。该项目将以基准测试、分享最佳实践、指导和教育的形式为合作科学研究中心的负责人提供实际支持。许多中心管理人员接受特定科学学科的培训，并仅在这些学科内获得管理项目的经验，但管理此类较小规模的学科项目与管理大型跨学科分布式研究中心有着根本的不同。该项目提供的研讨会，材料和网络将通过为中心管理人员提供所需的管理工具来提高中心的绩效，以实现满足社会需求的科学进步。此外，该网络将使来自广泛学科的学者能够协调研究对这些中心的管理至关重要的问题，加深他们对科学奋进的参与，并提高研究成果与合作研究中心的有效和高效管理的相关性。 这个研究合作网络有可能改变网络支持的大挑战社区，从根本上提高他们的成功，并指导适当的网络基础设施工具的未来发展。

In this project the Principal Investigators will build a cross-disciplinary community of scholars and practitioners interested in studying and improving the management of collaborative, distributed scientific research centers. Such centers are foundational to an increasing portion of contemporary science, growing in size and diversifying in scope, but there is a dearth of systematic exploration into the management practices that enable centers to operate effectively and innovate consistently. Collaborative research centers are different than other organizations and subject to a variety of unique pressures, including those associated with infrastructural innovation, distributed software development, and virtual organizing. Although there is an extensive evidence base available to guide different forms of organizational management, it is as yet unclear which elements of management research and practice apply to this particular form of organization and there is an absence of venues for center managers to share and learn how to be more efficient and effective. Through a series of topical workshops, the project will allow center managers to share what works and to get ideas for managing their centers more effectively; in turn organizational scholars will investigate how elements of organizational scholarship can apply to the management of such centers. Further, we will determine how to best disseminate relevant training, best practices, benchmarking, and actionable research associated with center management and explore how such a community can be sustained over time.This project will provide practical support for the directors of collaborative scientific research centers in the form of benchmarking, sharing best practices, guidance and education on managerial issues. Many center managers receive their training within particular scientific disciplines and gain experience managing projects only within those disciplines, but managing such smaller-scale disciplinary projects is fundamentally different from managing larger, cross-disciplinary, distributed research centers. The workshops, materials and networking provided by this project will improve center performance by equipping center managers with the management tools needed to enable scientific advances that address societal needs. Further, the network will enable coordination of scholars from the wide range of disciplines that study issues important to the management of such centers, deepen their engagement with the scientific endeavor and improve the relevance of research results to the effective and efficient management of collaborative research centers. This research collaboration network has the potential to transform cyber-enabled grand challenge communities, radically improve their success, and guide future development of appropriate cyberinfrastructure tools.