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Collaborative Science: Designing the Future. Dr. Susan Winter University of Maryland, College Park sjwinter@umd.edu. National Science Foundation. “ …promote the progress of science… advance the national health, prosperity and welfare… secure the national defense… ”
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Collaborative Science: Designing the Future Dr. Susan Winter University of Maryland, College Park sjwinter@umd.edu
National Science Foundation “…promote the progress of science… advance the national health, prosperity and welfare… secure the national defense…” National Science Foundation Act of 1950 EPSCoR goals stimulate sustainable improvements in participants’ R&D capacity and competitiveness advance science and engineering capabilities in EPSCoR jurisdictions
US R&D Fragmented: Difficult to Influence, Much Less Control Universities Inherently Parochial Government Jurisdictional Issues Private Sector Competitors
Advance Science and Engineering Capacity Complex intellectual challenges Multi-disciplinary collaboration among diverse teams sharing common resources Distributed Geographically Virtual Organizations!
Organization of Scientific Work Old Science Lab, Researcher + Assistants Division of Labor Narrow Focus of Work New Science Complex Problems Shared Resources Interdisciplinary Teams Global Operations, Distributed, Asynchronous
Science • Infrastructure Development • Enabling Technologies • Organization of Work • Exploitation of Capability
Principles for Designing Collaborative Science Organizations • Informed and Reflective Choices • General Principles • Understand Specific Contexts
Organizations • Likelihood of Success for Kinds of Alliances • Knowledge-based Alliances Least Likely • Leadership and Processes are Important • Silos are Hard • Interactions • Incentives • Insights • Building Cultures • Building Spanning Roles
Knowledge Management/ Group and Team Science • Trust is Key • Absorptive Capacity • Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge
Sociotechnical Systems • “If You Build it, They Will Come” Myth • Crowdsourcing/Social Participation • Citizen Science • Prizes/Contests/Competitions • Gamification • Incentives NOT well understood
3 Aspects of Scientific Work • Assets • What do you have to work with? • Knowledge Flows • Who tells who about what and when? • Governance • Who can make what decisions? • What are the incentives?
3 Aspects of Scientific Work Dimension Collaboration Success Knowledge-based Alliances vs. Sharing Equipment or Data Silos Impede Knowledge Flows Mandating Use vs. Incentives • Assets • Knowledge Flows • Governance
Types of Collaborations • Lifecycle and Endurance • Temporary, Recurring, Permanent • Boundedness • Problem-focused vs. Group-enabling • Scale and Scope • 2 vs. 2,000 Scientists
Determinants of Enablers • Degree of Shared Context • Discipline, Department, Organization, Country, Language, Culture • Task and Actor Interdependence • Divisible, Serial Dependence, Co-creation
Determinants of Enablers • Regulatory Environments • Degrees of Freedom? • Technical and Human Infrastructure • Tools • Custom, Off-the-Shelf, End-User Developed • Heterogeneous Environments (Platforms, Networks) • Poor Fit to Tasks • Technical Difficulties are the Norm! • Human • Large Gaps in Expertise on Teams
Mix Modalities to Enable Knowledge Flows • Oral • Face-to-Face, videoconference, phone • Written • Manuals/Wikis, Contracts, Journal Articles Pictures/Graphics (drawing boards), Meta-data, MOUs, email, Text Messages, Blogs, Tweets
Is this easy? No! • Hitting a Moving Target • Will Eventually Sort it Out • Goal = Accelerate Process so Get Sorted Faster • Hard and Persistent Problems even with the Help of the Organizational Sciences • Resources are Sparsely Distributed and Poorly Connected (Who do you call for help?) • Hard to Disseminate Lessons Learned
Problems Are Tractable If • Committed & Not Easily Discouraged • In It for the Long Run • Issues Play out Over Time • Iterative Process of Doing & Learning • Synthesis Across Instances for Patterns • Know why you are invested in this • Complementary Assets • Engage Really Good People to Work on Them
Designing Collaborative Research Organizations: Smart Learning by Doing • Bring Assets to Bear on the Problem • Research Evidence • Industry Lessons Learned • Assessment for Continuous Improvement • Support Leaders and Members for Knowledge Transfer/Deployment • Workshops, Manuals, Online Resources • More Research/Translation to Practice
Research Evidence: Creation/Synthesis/Agenda Understanding Innovation Communities Translational science Realizing the Potential Building Innovation Communities Tailored suite of materials: - Practices, tools, processes… - Scale, Disciplinarity, Pedagogy Funding Good Practices Human Capital