This project studies how effective interdisciplinary research collaborations emerge in modern science. Increasingly, solutions to scientific and engineering problems require multidisciplinary distributed teams, but little is known about their emergence, coalescence, structural form and success. This research develops and tests the value of a typology of such teams. Conditions that may foster formation of enduring and productive teams will also be considered including the role of leaders and the importance of new social software and web-based collaboration tools. Changing models of science and the appropriateness of scientific institutions and infrastructures to support these new models will be identified.
This research will contribute to research on collaboration, institutions, the role of infrastructure, and the science of science. New cyberinfrastructure has enabled transformative changes in collaborative science and engineering, but little is known about the new forms that collaborations are taking and the role of new social and Web 2.0 technologies in their creation and development. This study will identify new forms of scientific and engineering collaborations that are emerging, how they be can be identified and catalyzed early, and how they can best be supported and nurtured.
Investigating the emergence of new collaborations, new collaborative forms, and new types of scientific work enabled by changes in cyberinfrastructure is a crucial step in learning how to identify, catalyze and support the nascent teams that will be central to future advances in science and engineering. This will be helpful to funding agencies, and other research institutions. In addition, cyberinfrastructure can enhance the participation of under-represented groups and minority institutions in scientific and engineering collaborations.
