News from NIH: resources for team-based research to more effectively address complex public health problems

Hall K, Olster D., Stipelman B., Vogel A.. News from NIH: resources for team-based research to more effectively address complex public health problems. Translational Behavioral Medicine. 2012 Dec;2(4):373-375.

A perennial goal of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is “to foster fundamental creative discoveries, innovative research strategies and their applications as a basis for ultimately protecting and improving health” [1]. In response to this goal, an increasing number of initiatives have emerged to promote cross-disciplinary team-based research. Cross-disciplinary research approaches aim to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines and perspectives to generate innovative solutions to real-world problems. Scholars have identified three main types of cross-disciplinary research approaches, multidisciplinary (MD), interdisciplinary (ID), and transdisciplinary (TD), each of which is characterized by an increasing level of disciplinary integration [2]. As research initiatives move along this continuum toward greater integration, they are increasingly likely to rely upon team-based research to develop, conceptualize, and implement research initiatives. The Science of Team Science (SciTS) field has emerged in response to the need to better understand the circumstances that facilitate or hinder effective team-based research and assess the outcomes of this approach for scientific productivity, innovation, and translational applications [3–5]. Over the past decade, NIH has provided leadership to support cross-disciplinary team-based research by: (1) advancing the SciTS field, (2) developing tools and resources to facilitate collaboration, and (3) funding team-based research.

Online at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13142-012-0172-1/fulltext.html