Facilitated Collaboration Planning

Team Science Core's newest programmatic offering

“Navigating team science and collaborations successfully is not always easy. Working with CTSI on a complex grant submission with multiple investigators and institutions has been instrumental to clarify roles and strengthen our team relationships. Is helpful to have support outside of the direct PIs involvement and gather different perspectives on how effective team leadership can be achieved by bouncing ideas off each other with a structured curriculum.”

Niccolò Terrando
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology & Cell Biology
Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

What is Collaboration Planning?

The Collaboration Planning framework was developed by team science experts at NSF and NCI to help teams proactively assess and address known hurdles to effective collaboration. Based on this framework the CTSA Team Science Core is offering 90-minute facilitated Collaboration Planning sessions which engage boundary-spanning research teams (see “Who is eligible?” below) in a deliberative approach to assess their team and its environment for factors that most frequently cause conflict in teams, such as communication, authorship, and project management. These 90-minute facilitated sessions are available to new research teams or teams embarking on a new project or research direction.


Why would a team engage in Collaboration Planning?

Collaboration Planning can help teams to:

  • create strong team processes from the beginning, which has been shown to result in improved scientific outcomes;

  • develop a template for writing a multi-PI plan;

  • address team-science-specific review criteria in future grant applications; and

  • build team leadership and collaboration skills for early-stage investigators and research staff.


Who is eligible?

All boundary-spanning teams from across the institution are eligible to participate. Boundary-spanning teams may include:

  • Translational teams

  • Inter-/trans- disciplinary teams

  • Multi-institutional teams

  • Community-engaged teams


Is there a fee to participate?

This program is part of a pilot study that allows us to offer this service without a fee.


Where to sign up and/or learn more

Connect with the Team Science Core by completing the service request formhttps://redcap.duke.edu/redcap/surveys/?s=TFE97YNDKK