IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v9y2020i7p119-d382501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Practical Guide for Managing Interdisciplinary Teams: Lessons Learned from Coupled Natural and Human Systems Research

Author

Listed:
  • V. Reilly Henson

    (Hume Center for National Security and Technology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA)

  • Kelly M. Cobourn

    (Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA)

  • Kathleen C. Weathers

    (Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY 12545, USA)

  • Cayelan C. Carey

    (Department of Biology, Virginia Tech, VA 24061, Blacksburg, VA 12545, USA)

  • Kaitlin J. Farrell

    (Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

  • Jennifer L. Klug

    (Department of Biology, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT 06824, USA)

  • Michael G. Sorice

    (Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA)

  • Nicole K. Ward

    (Department of Biology, Virginia Tech, VA 24061, Blacksburg, VA 12545, USA)

  • Weizhe Weng

    (School of Business, SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 14454, USA)

Abstract

Interdisciplinary team science is essential to address complex socio-environmental questions, but it also presents unique challenges. The scientific literature identifies best practices for high-level processes in team science, e.g., leadership and team building, but provides less guidance about practical, day-to-day strategies to support teamwork, e.g., translating jargon across disciplines, sharing and transforming data, and coordinating diverse and geographically distributed researchers. This article offers a case study of an interdisciplinary socio-environmental research project to derive insight to support team science implementation. We evaluate the project’s inner workings using a framework derived from the growing body of literature for team science best practices, and derive insights into how best to apply team science principles to interdisciplinary research. We find that two of the most useful areas for proactive planning and coordinated leadership are data management and co-authorship. By providing guidance for project implementation focused on these areas, we contribute a pragmatic, detail-oriented perspective on team science in an effort to support similar projects.

Suggested Citation

  • V. Reilly Henson & Kelly M. Cobourn & Kathleen C. Weathers & Cayelan C. Carey & Kaitlin J. Farrell & Jennifer L. Klug & Michael G. Sorice & Nicole K. Ward & Weizhe Weng, 2020. "A Practical Guide for Managing Interdisciplinary Teams: Lessons Learned from Coupled Natural and Human Systems Research," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:7:p:119-:d:382501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/7/119/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/7/119/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Van Noorden, 2015. "Interdisciplinary research by the numbers," Nature, Nature, vol. 525(7569), pages 306-307, September.
    2. Lee, You-Na & Walsh, John P. & Wang, Jian, 2015. "Creativity in scientific teams: Unpacking novelty and impact," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 684-697.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. László Berényi & László Soltész, 2022. "Evaluation of Product Development Success: A Student Perspective," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhu, Nibing & Liu, Chang & Yang, Zhilin, 2021. "Team Size, Research Variety, and Research Performance: Do Coauthors’ Coauthors Matter?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    2. Yoshi-aki Shimada & Jun Suzuki, 2017. "Promoting scientodiversity inspired by biodiversity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1463-1479, December.
    3. Hannes W. Lampe & Jan Reerink, 2021. "Know your audience: how language complexity affects impact in entrepreneurship science," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(7), pages 1025-1061, September.
    4. Shufang Huang & Jin Chen & Liang Mei & Weiqiao Mo, 2019. "The Effect of Heterogeneity and Leadership on Innovation Performance: Evidence from University Research Teams in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-14, August.
    5. Roos, Michael W. M., 2015. "The macroeconomics of radical uncertainty," Ruhr Economic Papers 592, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    6. Mohammadi, Ali & Broström, Anders & Franzoni, Chiara, 2015. "Work Force Composition and Innovation: How Diversity in Employees’ Ethnical and Disciplinary Backgrounds Facilitates Knowledge Re-combination," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 413, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    7. Stefano Bianchini & Moritz Müller & Pierre Pelletier, 2022. "Artificial intelligence in science: An emerging general method of invention," Post-Print hal-03958025, HAL.
    8. Zuo, Zhiya & Zhao, Kang, 2018. "The more multidisciplinary the better? – The prevalence and interdisciplinarity of research collaborations in multidisciplinary institutions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 736-756.
    9. Burmaoglu, Serhat & Sartenaer, Olivier & Porter, Alan, 2019. "Conceptual definition of technology emergence: A long journey from philosophy of science to science policy," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    10. Alessandro Pluchino & Giulio Burgio & Andrea Rapisarda & Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Alfredo Pulvirenti & Alfredo Ferro & Toni Giorgino, 2019. "Exploring the role of interdisciplinarity in physics: Success, talent and luck," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Dominic Villeneuve & David Durán-Rodas & Anthony Ferri & Tobias Kuttler & Julie Magelund & Michael Mögele & Luca Nitschke & Eriketti Servou & Cat Silva, 2019. "What is Interdisciplinarity in Practice? Critical Reflections on Doing Mobility Research in an Intended Interdisciplinary Doctoral Research Group," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Schlecht, Colleen & McGuier, Elizabeth A. & Ann Huang, Lee & Daro, Deborah, 2023. "Creating an interdisciplinary collaborative network of scholars in child maltreatment prevention: A network analysis of the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    13. Lina Xu & Steven Dellaportas & Zhiqiang Yang & Jin Wang, 2023. "More on the relationship between interdisciplinary accounting research and citation impact," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(4), pages 4779-4803, December.
    14. Banal-Estañol, Albert & Macho-Stadler, Inés & Pérez-Castrillo, David, 2019. "Evaluation in research funding agencies: Are structurally diverse teams biased against?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 1823-1840.
    15. van Criekingen, Kristof & Freel, Mark & Czarnitzki, Dirk, 2021. "Open innovation deficiency: Evidence on project abandonment and delay," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-006, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Froese, Anna & Woiwode, Hendrik & Suckow, Silvio, 2019. "Mission Impossible? Neue Wege zu Interdisziplinarität: Empfehlungen für Wissenschaft, Wissenschaftspolitik und Praxis," Discussion Papers, Research Group Science Policy Studies SP III 2019-601, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    17. Ad van den Oord & Arjen van Witteloostuijn, 2018. "A multi-level model of emerging technology: An empirical study of the evolution of biotechnology from 1976 to 2003," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-27, May.
    18. Veugelers, Reinhilde & Wang, Jian, 2019. "Scientific novelty and technological impact," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1362-1372.
    19. Cathrin Söllner & Dirk Fornahl, 2021. "Unleashing Inventive Power - Solving cognitive, social and geographic distance issues with cultural proximity," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2103, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    20. Lanu Kim & Jason H. Portenoy & Jevin D. West & Katherine W. Stovel, 2020. "Scientific journals still matter in the era of academic search engines and preprint archives," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(10), pages 1218-1226, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:9:y:2020:i:7:p:119-:d:382501. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.