Research Collaboration Network for Managing Collaborative Research Centers

在这个项目中，首席调查员将建立一个由学者和实践者组成的跨学科社区，他们对研究和改进协作、分散的科学研究中心的管理感兴趣。这类中心在当代科学中所占的比例越来越大，规模越来越大，范围也越来越多样化，但缺乏对使中心能够有效运营和持续创新的管理实践的系统探索。协作研究中心不同于其他组织，面临着各种独特的压力，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。虽然有广泛的证据基础来指导不同形式的组织管理，但目前还不清楚哪些管理研究和实践要素适用于这种特定的组织形式，也缺乏让中心管理人员分享和学习如何提高效率和效力的场所。通过一系列专题研讨会，该项目将允许中心经理分享什么是有效的，并获得更有效地管理他们的中心的想法；反过来，组织学者将研究组织学术元素如何应用于此类中心的管理。此外，我们将确定如何最好地传播与中心管理相关的相关培训、最佳实践、基准和可操作的研究，并探索如何长期维持这样一个社区。该项目将以基准、分享最佳实践、指导和管理问题教育的形式，为合作科研中心的主任提供实践支持。许多中心管理人员在特定的科学学科中接受培训，并仅在这些学科中获得管理项目的经验，但管理这种规模较小的学科项目与管理较大的、跨学科的、分散的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配备必要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，该网络将能够协调来自广泛学科的学者，这些学者研究对这类中心管理重要的问题，加深他们对科学努力的参与，并提高研究成果与协作研究中心有效和高效率管理的相关性。这一研究协作网络有可能改变网络支持的重大挑战社区，从根本上提高他们的成功，并指导未来开发适当的网络基础设施工具。

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.