Collaborative Research: Multiteam system design for maximizing scientific, technological, & policy innovation

关于科学集体(即团队、中心)孕育重大创新的能力，有相互矛盾的证据。一方面，社会学研究令人信服地论证了“团队在知识生产中的主导地位”，特别是在“高影响力”知识的生产中。另一方面，研究表明，许多科学团队，特别是那些因其多样化和分布式的“梦之队”而最受珍视的团队，在涉及到出版物、专利和商业化时，尤其容易表现不佳。这个研究项目调查了大量的科学集体，从他们最初的形成到他们的成熟，以揭示结构(即集体是如何设计的)和过程(即领导力和成员互动)之间的动态相互作用。尽管跨学科和单位的协作经常被认为是创新的关键障碍之一，但需要进行研究，以确定系统设计如何影响促进团队和单位内部和跨团队和单位协作的多层次过程。这项研究将心理学、组织和网络科学的观点整合到一个多层次的系统模型中，详细说明了目标、领导力和系统设计对创新系统中团队内部和团队间协作的关键驱动因素的影响。在两年的时间里，正在进行四项实证研究，以评估科学创新系统结构的变化对由此产生的创新的影响。这项研究调查了由两所大学、三个学科和两个国家的学生组成的科学集体，他们必须合作解决环境可持续发展中的跨学科挑战。该项目开发了一个证据基础，用于为如何管理科学合作以促进创新的政策提供信息。特别是，这个项目将使科学和政策的最佳结合成为可能。该项目确定了科学集体中成功协作的结构和互动构件，团队分布在其中，受到复杂的社会和激励力量的影响，并通过虚拟技术互动，利用知识跨越时间和空间边界进行创新。该项目将使人们更好地理解如何通过设计和领导干预、知识生成和多团队科学中的政策实施来改进。该项目的第二组更广泛的影响涉及四个社区的教育：(1)未来的科学家，(2)科学政策领导人，(3)学者和(4)学生。该项目正在促进对未来科学家的培训，他们将作为分散的多学科国际科学团队的一部分工作。据估计，10名博士生和10名研究型本科生将有机会直接参与这项研究，参与虚拟科学合作。该项目将在佐治亚理工学院为计算机和工程专业的学生开设分布式多学科团队合作的新课程。在乔治梅森，这个项目将促进环境科学与政策和心理学项目的教师之间的持续合作。这一合作的目标是设计综合课程，帮助学生了解如何使用生态学和社会心理学的原理来促进更大的环境可持续性。最后，该项目将为参与这项研究的2000多名工程学、生态学、心理学和商学专业的学生提供团队合作培训。

There is conflicting evidence about the capacity for scientific collectives (i.e., teams, centers) to seed grand innovations. On the one hand, sociological research convincingly argues for the "dominance of teams in the production of knowledge," particularly in the production of "high-impact" knowledge. On the other hand, research shows that many science teams, particularly the ones most prized for their diverse and distributed "dream teams" are especially prone to underachieving when it comes to publications, patents, and commercialization. This program of research investigates a large number of scientific collectives, from their initial formation to their maturity, in order to uncover the dynamic interplay between structure (i.e., how the collective is designed) and process (i.e., leadership and member interactions). Although collaboration across disciplines and units has been frequently recognized as one of the key obstacles to innovation, research is needed to determine how system design affects the multi-level processes that facilitate collaboration within and across teams and units. This research integrates psychological, organizational, and network science perspectives in a multilevel system model to detail the impact of goals, leadership, and system design on key drivers of collaboration within and across teams in innovation systems. Four empirical studies are being conducted over the course of two years in order to evaluate the impact of variations in the architecture of scientific innovation systems on resulting innovation. This research investigates scientific collectives comprised of students working across two universities, three disciplines, and two countries who must work collaboratively to solve interdisciplinary challenges in environmental sustainability.Broader Impacts. The project develops an evidentiary-base for informing policy on how to manage scientific collaborations to foster innovation. In particular, this project will enable concrete prescriptions about the optimal integration of science and policy. The project identifies the structural and interactional building blocks of successful collaboration in scientific collective in which teams are distributed, are affected by complex social and motivational forces, and interact through virtual technology to innovate using knowledge across temporal and spatial boundaries. This project will yield greater understanding of how to improve, through design and leadership interventions, knowledge generation and policy implementation in multiteam science. A second set of broader impacts of the project concern the education of four communities: (1) future scientists, (2) science policy leaders, (3) academics, and (4) students. This project is enabling the training of future scientists who will work as part of distributed multidisciplinary international science teams. An estimated 10 PhD students and 10 research-oriented undergraduate students will have the opportunity to work directly on this research, engaging in virtual scientific collaboration. The project will create new curricula in distributed multidisciplinary teamwork at Georgia Tech aimed at computing and engineering students. At George Mason, this project will foster a continuing collaboration between instructors in the Environmental Science & Policy and Psychology programs. This collaboration has as its goal the design of integrated curricula to help students understand how to use both principles of ecology and social psychology to foster greater environmental sustainability. Finally, the project contributes to the teamwork training of more than 2,000 Engineering, Ecology, Psychology, and Business students who will participate in this research.