EAGER: Sensible Science: A Sociometric Approach to Collaboration in Synthesis Groups

这项研究考察了跨学科的科学家小组如何合作，以产生高度综合和原创的解释。这种被称为综合的智力过程有可能改变科学领域，并解决与环境、能源和其他问题有关的挑战。它通过整合跨学科、专业部门或时空尺度的理论、方法或数据来产生具有深度原创性和特别广泛适用性的解释。综合对科学和社会都很重要，但实现这一目标所需的组织和社会条件尚未得到很好的了解，因此管理它们的能力有限。本项目使用社会计量传感器徽章（一种用于研究小群体行为的新研究技术），结合科学、小群体研究、社会学和组织行为学等社会研究领域的成熟方法，研究群体组织模式和互动如何影响绩效和创造力。对小群体的研究，特别是对科学家群体的研究，往往依赖于观察。虽然这很有价值，但观察必然受到观察者注意力或焦点的限制，并倾向于产生定性数据。社会测量传感器可以通过揭示群体动态的新方面来补充观察，并精确而不引人注目地测量它们，还可以挖掘合作的情感维度。社会测量传感器及其产生的对群体行为的新见解，可能会改变科学中对协作、综合和情感的研究，并推动相关领域的研究。跨学科综合和创新对于解决社会问题至关重要，鼓励综合的政策在国家科学议程上处于重要位置。通过提高我们对综合及其研究方法的理解，本项目将为更好地制定有关合作、跨学科和综合的政策、决策和组织实践奠定坚实的实证基础。

This study examines how interdisciplinary groups of scientists collaborate to produce explanations that are highly integrative and original. This intellectual process, which is called synthesis, has the potential to transform fields of science and to address challenges concerning environment, energy, and other matters. It does so by integrating theories, methods, or data across disciplines, professional sectors, or spatial and temporal scales to produce explanations that are deeply original and exceptionally broad in applicability. Synthesis is important to science and society, but the organizational and social conditions necessary to achieve it are not well understood, and so the ability to manage them is limited. This project uses sociometric sensor badges, a new research technology for the study of small group behavior, in combination with well-established methods in social studies of science, small-group research, sociology, and organizational behavior, to examine how patterns of group organization and interaction influence performance and creativity. Studies of small groups, particularly groups of scientists, tend to rely on observation. Valuable as this is, observation is necessarily limited by the observer's attention or focus and tends to produce qualitative data. Sociometric sensors can complement observation by revealing new facets of group dynamics and measuring them precisely and unobtrusively, and can also tap the affective dimension of collaboration. Sociometric sensors, and the new insights into group behavior they will produce, may transform studies of collaboration, synthesis, and emotion in science, and advance research in related fields. Interdisciplinary synthesis and innovation are vital for addressing societal problems, and policies to encourage synthesis are high on the national science agenda. By improving our understanding of synthesis and our methods for studying it, this project will lay a strong empirical foundation for better policies, decisions, and organizational practices concerning collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and synthesis.