How Evidence Based is Your Vision of Team Science?

Caspar van Lissa, Inge van de Ven, Marjan van Hunnik

Based on the report:

Towards a Vision for Team Science at Tilburg University

Wooclap (wc)

https://app.wooclap.com/ULYBOH

One answer per team
5 minutes / response
Team name on top!

Answer Wooclap
Examine scientific literature on Team Science
Peer-review each other’s answers, “like” one per team
- You can like your own answer, but be fair!
Determine a winner!

Defining Team Science (wc)

Team Science: research conducted interdependently by multiple individuals (Cooke, Hilton, & Council, 2015).

Often, but not always, interdisciplinary
Essential for solving multifaceted challenges like climate change, inequality, and health (psychosocial determinants) (Ledford, 2015; Korthals Altes, 2014)

Revised definition:

Collaboration with more partners than typical in a field

Focus on goals beyond individual achievement

Emphasizes diverse perspectives and stakeholder inclusion

Who has participated in team science?

Team Science Benefits (wc)

Impact: Address major social, economic, and ecological challenges (Allen & Mehler, 2019; Cannon, 2020).
Strength-based collaboration: specialization allows team members to contribute what comes easier to them (writing, data collection, public engagement)
Pool Resources: increased statistical power (Klein et al., 2014), replication, costly data (fMRI), compute
Creativity, Insight, and Diverse Perspectives (Cannon, 2020).
Career advantages: Team publications have a citation advantage, particularly valuable for early career scholars (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007).
Well-being: community and empowerment researchers (Mydin et al., 2021).
Mentorship: Teams facilitate mentoring and skills transfer
Research : Collaboration enhances the reproducibility and trustworthiness of research.

Challenges of Team Science

Social Loafing (Simms & Nichols, 2014)
Self Bias: Everyone feels like they contributed most (Johnston & Miles, 2010)
Interdependence: Success depends on others (Conn et al., 2019)
Coordination (Forscher et al., 2023)
Diversity perspectives: promote innovation but raise communication barriers (Nielsen et al., 2017)
Knowledge integration: is not automatic, TMSR CoDa (Conn et al., 2019).
Team size paradox: Smaller teams coordinate better, larger teams have more impact (Cummings, 2018)
Misaligned goals between team members and external partners (Patel et al., 2021).
Physical distance: better since COVID, but RSM strategy (Earley & Mosakowski, 2000)
Start-up costs: building relationships, establishing modus operandi
Hard to get funded (Bromham et al., 2016)

Team Science and Open Science

Open science greases the wheels of team science.

UNESCO: open science [comprises] practices aiming to make scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.

FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable

First with your (future) self
Then with colleague next door, supervisor, co-author
Then with larger teams
Then with the world!

Specific Open Science Practices

Open/reproducible code increases reusability/scalability (Van Lissa et al., 2021), reduces onboarding (Baumgartner et al. 2023)
Public Engagement dimension of open science IS team science (Tebes and Thai 2018)
Preregistration define scope of work, prevent post-hoc disagreements (Peikert, Van Lissa, and Brandmaier 2021)
Registered Reports: “guaranteed payoff” for team efforts (Baumgartner et al. 2023)
Open access ensures that all contributors retain access

What do Effective Teams Do? (wc)

Establish Mental Models: Shared understanding of goals, tasks, and roles (Vogel et al., 2014)
Transactive Memory: Awareness of each member’s expertise (Patel et al., 2021; Ghamgosar et al., 2023)
Nurture Relationships: Linked to productivity (DeHart, 2017; Love et al., 2023)
Trust: foundational for team effectiveness (Breuer et al., 2016; Bennett & Gadlin, 2014)

Trust in Teams (wc)

Building Trust:
- Clear, open communication (Conn et al., 2019)
- Culture of Dialogue, listening, and engagement (O’Rourke et al., 2023)
- Joint identification of goals (Roelofs et al., 2019)
- Formal agreements (Forscher et al., 2023)
- Social activities (boulder outing)
Procedural Fairness:
- Trust takes time, less feasible for ECR
- Transparency mitigates need for trust (Zajac et al., 2021)
Codes of Conduct:
- Define norms, social safety, and fair attribution (Baumgartner et al., 2023)

Diversity conclusions (wc)

Task-relevant diversity improves team effectiveness (Liu et al. 2020)
Social Safety important to increase trust and cohesion, furthering team goals (Edmondson, 1999)
People tend to prefer being around similar others (Montoya and Horton 2013)
- That’s why policy is important
Benefits: fresh perspectives, innovation, creativity (Nielsen et al., 2017)
Challenges: Can increase conflict, especially in geographically or culturally diverse teams (Polzer et al., 2006)

Lack of diversity costs teams:

Missing out on skilled candidates
Missing essential perspectives and knowledge
Alienating relevant stakeholders, reduced impact (Powell, 2018)

What Makes a Good Team Member?

Driskell et al., 2006:

Agreeableness: Best predictor of interpersonal success
- Interested in people, sympathise with others, make people feel at ease
Openness: Flexibility is virtually universally advantageous (Hackman & Morris, 1978)
- Opposite: stubborn, views uncertainty as a threat, low tolerance for ambiguity
Conscientiousness: Mixed findings
- hardworking, prepared, organized, meet obligations thoroughly and on-time, be reliable

Team Fluidity and Permeable Boundaries (skip)

O’Rourke et al., 2023; Mathieu et al., 2014

Opportunities (Tannenbaum et al. 2012; Zajac et al. 2021):
- Facilitates knowledge transfer
- Fresh perspectives and ideas (Gruenfeld et al., 2000)
- Adapt to changing task demands (Gorman & Cooke, 2011).
Challenges:
- Overhead from onboarding (reduced by reproducibility, CoC’s)
- Weakens team cohesion and stability (Emich et al., 2022).
- ECRs risk contributing without sufficient recognition (Craig, 2018)
  - Example: PhD’s in physics

Leadership in Team Science (wc, skip)

University Hierarchies:
- Structured, distinct roles and organizational units
- Facilitates logistics but hinders innovation and collaboration (Keum & See, 2017)
Flexible Hierarchies better suited to (team) science (Burns and Stalker 1994)
Shared Leadership
- Enhances team performance (Marlow et al., 2018)
- Promotes collaboration and shared vision (Rycroft-Malone et al., 2016)

How to Recognize and Reward Team Efforts?

R&R policy is the Engine of Cultural Change (Brody et al., 2019)
- Explicit valuation in hiring, review, and promotion decisions (Meurer et al., 2023)
For Early-Career Researchers:
- Incentives in terms of future employment, advancement, and funding opportunities (DeHart, 2017)
- Doctoral Socialization by supervisors (Austin, 2011).
Requires fair and transparent credit, respecting disciplinary differences (Tscharntke et al., 2007; Cooke et al., 2015)
State the convention used for attribution
- Explicitly acknowledge contributions, cf. implicit indicators like author order (Brand et al., 2015)
- CRediT Contributor Taxonomy: clarify contributions along 14 dimensions (Allen et al., 2014)
- Anonymous Attribution: maintain fairness and social safety in groups with power imbalances or risks of nepotism

COARA incentivizes Team Science

Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment

Did you institution sign COARA?

Away from Metrics with Poor Validity (Journal Impact Factor)
Towards R&R of Quality and Contribution
Assess activities essential to team science, e.g. collaboration, team science, interdisciplinarity, impact, open science practices
Provides security for ECRs who commit to team science, and attracts suitable candidates