Management and Leadership of
Multi-Institutional and Interdisciplinary Collaborations
Sunday,
Maria Vassileva,
Research Competitiveness Service, AAAS - symposium organizer;
Bob Crangle,
Rose and Crangle, Ltd. and Amanda Hunt, Research
Competitiveness Service, AAAS - symposium co-organizers;
In today’s
“flat world” the best researchers are also the best collaborators. In the words
of Thomas Friedman, “the next layers of innovation - whether in technology,
biomedicine or manufacturing - are becoming so complex that they always involve
the intersection of very advanced specialties.” That is why multi-institutional
and interdisciplinary collaborations are absolutely critical for value creation
to occur.
The grand challenges and great
opportunities of multi-institutional and inter-disciplinary research collaborations
were discussed during this symposium by:
1.
Dr. Kris Krishtalka from the
University of Kansas who is the Director of their Natural History Museum and
Biodiversity Research Center, and also a Professor in the Department of Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology
2.
Dr. Carol Van Hartesveldt
from the National Science Foundation, where she is the Director of the
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT)
The moderator of the discussion was Dr. Bob Barnhill, the
Vice Chancellor for Research & Technology Transfer at the
Kris opened the
symposium with his overview of inter-institutional research consortia, which he
called “complex sociological phenomena.” To be successful, he indicated
that they require five key ingredients: (1) An outstanding idea at the
core of research around which the group forms; (2) an outstanding leader who
leads with ideas, engagement in the ideas and equal doses of prudence and risk;
(3) a hand-picked team that eschews tribalism and shares the culture, work
ethic and reciprocal benefits of collaborative knowledge discovery; (4) a
project organization that plays like a jazz quartet—tight as an ensemble in
rhythm, timing and harmony, yet creative, exploring and complementary in individual
riffs; (5) institutions that become administrative partners in the
collaboration culture and mechanisms they expect from research consortia.
Kris emphasized that institutional administrations must reward participation in
research consortia, e.g., in merit, promotion and tenure evaluations.
They must administer the smooth functioning of the consortium by providing
collaboration mechanisms (e.g., communication and information systems, travel)
and shared solutions to bureaucratic and policy hurdles in such areas as grant
and budget administration, IDC distribution and intellectual property.
Carol followed
Kris’s introduction by pointing out that the interdisciplinary scientists and
educators of tomorrow are the graduate students of today. She pointed out how we can educate them to
carry out the science of the future in the careers of the future, basing her
recommendations on her experiences as the Director of the NSF IGERT Program.
Carol stated that the key features of interdisciplinary graduate education include
participation in collaborative research, an interdisciplinary curriculum,
teamwork, multiple mentors, and development of professional skills for a
variety of careers. These features may be successfully incorporated through
partnerships with other universities, national laboratories, industry,
government organizations, and non-governmental organizations both within and
outside the
Daryl
Chubin focused his presentation on how institutions
must respond to the three “grand challenges” of collaboration, resources, and
politics. The Capacity Center Daryl
directs is a fee-for-service consulting organization, based on the Research
Competitiveness Program model. His Center facilitates institutional responses
to the challenges stated above and promotes creative solutions that academic
stakeholders -chancellors, provosts, deans, chairs, faculty, students, and
staff - can own, sustain, institutionalize, and share. Daryl stated that each challenge demands a
strategy to foster collaborations to advance knowledge and practice, to invest
local resources prudently, and to define attainable goals while negotiating
inter- and intra-institutional structures/cultures. He also discussed that such capacity must be
grown campus-by-campus, built on the knowledge, skills, and experience of teams
assembled to address a client institution’s particular mission and
constellation of baseline strengths (by discipline, research specialty, target
group, etc.). In his presentation he echoed the statements of the previous
speakers of the challenges to multi-institutional collaborations that remain
today, and the outstanding opportunities that exist for resolving existing
differences in institutional culture.
Maria Vassileva, Senior Program Associate, Research Competitiveness Service, Science and Policy Programs, AAAS
Dr. Kris Krishtalka, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, Director of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research
Center, University of Kansas
Dr. Carol VanHartesveldt, Program Director for the Intergrative
Graduate Educaiton and Research Traineeship (IGERT)
at NSF
Dr. Daryl Chubin, Director of the
Bob Barnhill, Vice Chancellor
for Research and Technology Transfer at the