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2023-2024 Team Science Training Workshop Series

Members of team work together on research ideas using sticky notes posted to a wall.

Building and Sustaining Effective Cross-Disciplinary Teams

Establishing and maintaining an effective research team is a difficult challenge as research addresses complex problems and spans disciplines, societal sectors, communities, and institutions. To support Virginia Tech faculty members’ capacity to engage in and lead successful cross-disciplinary teams, the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment (ISCE) and its Whole Health Consortium, and +Policy Network are offering a three-part workshop series on team science fundamentals.

Informed by the science of team science, participants will gain practical skills for building cohesive teams and strategies that are adaptable to diverse research domains and settings.  Modular workshops will provide guidance on the characteristics, processes, and dynamics that contribute to a cross-disciplinary team’s success, as well as how and when team science should be initiated, conducted, and evaluated.

Each workshop will focus on a critical team science competency. Workshops will be 90 minutes long and offered online via Zoom, and will be led by Shalini Misra, ISCE Administrative Fellow, Associate Professor, Urban Affairs and Planning, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech. Participants are encouraged to join in all three workshops to take full advantage of this training opportunity.

Workshop Topics

Past:

  • Workshop 3: Managing Difference and Conflict in Cross-Disciplinary Research Teams
    • This third and final workshop of the Team Science series, held on Friday, April 12, 2024, taught participants about the basics of communicating across disciplinary boundaries. Participants learned how to harness the diversity of teams, promote productive disagreement, and anticipate, prevent, and mitigate conflict.  
    • Click here to access the slides, click here to view the presentation recording, and click here to view the presentation references.
  • Workshop 2: Leading Cross-disciplinary Research Teams
    • This workshop, held on January 12, 2024, introduced participants to the evidence-based leadership dimensions of leading small and large-scale teams. Participants learned how to build and launch a cross-disciplinary team, set team expectations, foster trust, and generate a shared vision. 
    • Click here to access the slides, click here to view the presentation recording, and click here to view the presentation references.
  • Workshop 1: Team Science 101
    • This foundational workshop, held on October 27, 2023, introduced participants to the “science of team science” --- a field dedicated to studying the collaborative processes and outcomes of cross-disciplinary scientific teams and developing practical strategies to promote effective team science. Participants learned about the characteristics of successful teams, team science competencies, and establishing and maintaining effective team processes.
    • Click here to access the slides, click here to view the presentation recording, and click here to view the presentation references.

Series Objectives

At the end of the workshop series, participants will be able to:

  • Distinguish between different types of cross-disciplinary research
  • Identify team science skills and competencies for successful research outcomes
  • Recognize team science competencies and skills needed for leading cross-disciplinary research teams
  • Leverage the intellectual diversity in their teams to address complex problems
  • Apply strategies to recognize, prevent, and mitigate conflict in teams
  • All workshops are designed for Virginia Tech faculty and research staff at any level. New and experienced investigators, including seasoned PIs interested in developing program- or center-level proposals, can benefit from participating in the workshops.

For more information, contact Shalini Misra at shalini@vt.edu.

Shalini Misra Biography

Shalini Misra’s research focuses on understanding the collaborative and intellectual processes and outcomes of large-scale team science research and training initiatives. Funded by the NIH, NAS, and NSF, her research has led to the development of theory, evaluation frameworks, measures and metrics to assess the intellectual and integrative quality and societal impacts of inter- and trans-disciplinary, and convergence research and training programs. She is currently Co-PI on two NSF Growing Convergence Research projects where her role is to facilitate and study cross-disciplinary knowledge integration. She co-chaired the International Science of Team Science conference hosted by Virginia Tech in 2021. She is a past Board member of the International Network for the Science of Team Science. Please visit her webpage for more information about her teaching, research, publications, and grants.