Understanding and Assembling Dream Teams to Conduct Clinical and Translational Science

Award: #R01GM1374100

Period: 12/01/2019 -11/30/2023

“We hail individual geniuses, but success in science comes through collaboration” (Farrar, 2017).

Biomedical breakthroughs come from collaboration that crosses boundaries. Boundaries created by disciplines, organizations, cultures, professions, and demographics. While cross-boundary collaboration in team science has demonstrated benefits, research also suggests they are unlikely to form, and when they do, are prone to coordination costs.

This research project advances the Science of Team Science by “understanding” and “assembling” cross-boundary teams to conduct clinical and translational science. This research enables scholars and policymakers to design and assess “dream teams.” Toward the aim of understanding, we conduct archival studies of NIH’s Clinical & Translational Science Pilot Grant programs at Northwestern U. and Harvard Medical School to reveal the team assembly factors that drive formation and success. Toward the aim of assembling, we leverage a newly developed team recommender system. The fundamental goal is to generate recommendations to shift the composition of teams submitting Pilot Grant applications in particular and cross-boundary scientific teams in general.

Research Team