Team Science

In this heavily annotated article the provocative thesis is submitted that there is something fundamentally wrong with Western Sinology, or 'Chinakunde', or 'Zhongguoxue' (as distinct from 'Hanxue', which is a kind of old-fashioned philology). 'China experts' either pretend to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, in which case they cannot be taken seriously, or - eventually - admit not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country, in which case they cannot be called 'China experts'. The author, who graduated in Sinology from Leyden University and in economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, not only believes that the study of China has to be taken to a higher level (a belief he expects few tenured professors of Chinese Studies/History will share); he also explains how this long overdue task can be accomplished. Sinologists should take the complexity turn. They should treat China as a 'Ganzheit' (not: 'Gesamtheit'), as a territory-bound, history-moulded and culture-soaked totality of identifiable yet interdependent (f)actors, as a whole intimately interconnected with its numerous parts, as a hypercomplex system of complex, adaptive and non-linear systems of political, military, legal, economic, financial, social, medical, educational, artistic or other nature. Firmly distancing itself from multidisciplinary research (which in practice is a matter of juxta- rather than composition), the new study of China requires a well-thought-out, balanced division of labour. Close collaboration with ICT-driven, China-oriented experts in the natural, social and human sciences willing to co-operate with each other is a sine qua non for comprehending the country that seems to be moving to the centre stage of world politics. The study of China should be mile-wide and mile-deep. The heyday of Sinology is yet to come!
An earlier version of this highly critical but undeniably constructive paper was rejected out of hand by the editors of leading 'Chinese/Asian Studies' journals. The author claims to have reason to suspect them (and other so-called China experts) of being 'bought by China'!

In this paper the thesis is submitted that the study of China (indeed of each and every country) is wrongheaded in its methodology and should be fundamentally redesigned. Readers are kindly requested to notice that the author distinguishes between two kinds of 'China experts': 1) Those (tacitly) claiming to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, a - thank God - dying but by no means extinct breed of scholars mainly active in Europe; and 2) Those not CLAIMING to be China experts (that is, those eventually admitting not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country) but - and herein lies the crux of the matter -  not shying away from entering, without announcement or permission, a domain outside their own field of expertise, SHOULD THEY HAVE ONE! Many American and other 'China experts' can be blamed for this. 'China expert' is a misnomer, grossly (and dangerously) misleading politicians, captains of industry and the general public, as the author argues at length in the paper, which sums up a great deal of his research over the last few years. Scientists (e.g. demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, jurists, linguists, literary theorists/critics and 'Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaftler') may have research interest in a particular, their discipline related aspect of China; they can never be justifiably called 'China experts'. Throughout the article, particularly in the text under the subheading Scientific Collaboration, the necessity (and possibility!) of academic teamwork is emphasised, that is to say, the need for interdisciplinary (as distinct from multidisciplinary) research of China. The political, legal, military, economic, financial, social, educational, ecological, religious and other kindred affairs of China are inextricably intertwined, forming together a complex system of complex systems. Consequently, the country should be studied (as it has never been done!) by specialists closely working together and being aware of the historical as well as the geographical dimension of their 'material objects' (explananda). Briefly, the paper pleads for gaining EMPIRICALLY AND THEORETICALLY BASED knowledge of CHINA AS SUCH.

In recent years, more and more international comparative research has been conducted in internationally and geographically spread project teams and international research networks, and comparative research has become a fundamentally collaborative effort. Accordingly, research in such projects has to cope with a higher level of methodological complexity than non-comparative research as well as with a particular socio-cultural complexity. This complexity can have an influence on the research process and therefore on the quality and validity of the results, an issue that has so far not been discussed much, neither in higher education research nor beyond. Thus, this article refers to studies that provide empirical insights into comparative collaborative research teams and illuminates why international collaboration in comparative research projects is both a source of " better solutions " and of " amplified complications " and how they are interrelated. On this basis it provides a conceptual reflection and delineates dimensions of task-related, methodological complexity and team diversity. While comparative research has specific methodological challenges that can be alleviated by international team collaboration, collaborative research has particular social challenges that can be aggravated in comparative research. The conclusion makes propositions for further analyses, discusses lessons for comparative higher education research and sets out implications for its institutional development.

This paper identifies a gap in the team science literature that considers intrapersonal indicators of collaboration as motivations and threats to participating in collaborative knowledge producing teams (KPTs). Through a scoping review process, over 150 resources were consulted to organize 6 domains of motivation and threat to collaboration in KPTs: Resource Acquisition, Advancing Science, Building Relationships, Knowledge Transfer, Recognition and Reward, and Maintenance of Beliefs. Findings show how domains vary in their presentation of depth and diversity of motivation and threat indicators as well as their relationship with each other within and across domains. The findings of 51 indicators resulting from the review provide a psychosocial framework for which to establish a hierarchy of collaborative reasoning for individual engagement in KPTs thus allowing for further research into the mechanism of collaborative engagement. The indicators serve as a preliminary step in establishing a protocol for testing of the psychometric properties of intrapersonal measures of collaboration readiness.

Abstract An increase in cross-disciplinary, collaborative team science initiatives over the last few decades has spurred interest by multiple stakeholder groups in empirical research on scientific teams, giving rise to an emergent field referred to as the science of team science (SciTS). This study employed a collaborative team science concept-mapping evaluation methodology to develop a comprehensive research agenda for the SciTS field.

This essay discusses interdisciplinary research in the context of science policy and the practice of science. Comparisons between interdisciplinary research and other forms of cross-disciplinary research are made, and a brief discussion of the development of the concept of interdisciplinarity is provided. The overarching thesis of this essay is that interdisciplinary research is team research, that is, research conducted by a team. This notion is developed via recent policy discussions of team science and the need to understand interdisciplinary research in action. The author shows how it may be possible to consider the implementation of principles from teamwork and team training to improve interdisciplinary research and the practice of team science.

In this article the thesis is submitted that there is something fundamentally wrong with Western Sinology, or 'Chinakunde', or 'Zhongguoxue' (as distinct from 'Hanxue', which is a kind of old-fashioned philology aggrandised with quasi- if not pseudo-philosophy). 'China experts' either pretend to be knowledgeable about everything related to China, in which case they cannot be taken seriously, or - eventually - admit not to be scientific all-rounders with respect to the country, in which case they cannot be called China experts. The author, who graduated in Sinology from Leyden University and in economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, not only believes that the study of China has to be taken to a higher level (a belief, he expects, no tenured professor of Chinese Studies/History will share); he also explains how this long overdue task could be accomplished. The study of China should be neither mile-wide-but-inch-deep nor mile-deep-but-inch-wide; it should (and could!) be mile-wide-and-mile-deep. The heyday of Sinology is yet to come.

Increased public and private investments in large-scale team science initiatives over the past two decades have underscored the need to better understand how contextual factors influence the effectiveness of transdisciplinary scientific collaboration. Toward that goal, the findings from four distinct areas of research on team performance and collaboration are reviewed: (1) social psychological and management research on the effectiveness of teams in organizational and institutional settings; (2) studies of cyber-infrastructures (i.e., computer-based infrastructures) designed to support transdisciplinary collaboration across remote research sites; (3) investigations of community-based coalitions for health promotion; and (4) studies focusing directly on the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of scientific collaboration within transdisciplinary research centers and training programs. The empirical literature within these four domains reveals several contextual circumstances that either facilitate or hinder team performance and collaboration. A typology of contextual influences on transdisciplinary collaboration is proposed as a basis for deriving practical guidelines for designing, managing, and evaluating successful team science initiatives.

The Flow System shows how to generate and nurture self-organizing teams that mobilize the full talents of those doing the work to cope with dizzying change and complexity, while also drawing on the contributions of those for whom the work is being done–the customers.
—Steve Denning, author of The Age of Agile

Organizations that pull off this triple helix trick of thinking about the complexity of their systems and the environment in which they’re operating, distributed leadership to engage the collective intelligence and creativity of the organization, and building teams of teams so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts have good chance of keeping up and staying ahead.
—Steve Spear, MIT Sloan School senior lecturer, author of The High Velocity Edge

The Flow System’s Triple Helix provides many of the tools and ways of thinking we will need to do that; it is agile without being doctrinaire about Agile.
—David Snowden, creator of the Cynefin Framework, Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge

The rates of shift work outside of daylight hours have increased in recent years, and nighttime shift work is now considered a potential carcinogenic occupational exposure. Light at night exposure, lower melatonin production, and the production of stress-related mediators disrupt normal sleep-wake cycles. Women who work lower-wage jobs and part-time workers whose shifts are determined entirely by their supervisors (rotating shifts) may be subject to stress related to efforts to align childcare and other needs with the unpredictable nature of rotating shift work. The causal link between breast cancer and the sleep cycle or circadian disruption are yet to be established; however, disruption of the circadian cycles by light at night exposure or chronic exposure to stress-related mediators have all been linked to the increased risk of breast cancer. We review the existing literature on shift work and breast cancer, identify knowledge gaps, and suggest future directions for research.

Interaction is the distinctive feature of focus groups, yet little attention has been devoted to understanding techniques for enhancing the quality of interactions. We argue that using a quantitative survey instrument with focus groups has specific benefits beyond traditional open-ended topic lists or questions. We describe particular features of a survey that provoke reflection and reaction by participants, thereby deepening dialogue. When using this approach, we recommend that individuals complete the survey privately first, reflecting and taking a position on the statements individually, and then engage in discussion, which can surface differences and similarities. Drawing on our work with the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative involving collaborative cross-disciplinary research, we demonstrate the benefits of such a survey instrument to initiate and sustain productive dialogue, in this case regarding scientific beliefs and values. We conclude with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, as well as recommendations for designing and using survey items for focus groups.

Abstract Collaboration networks provide a method for examining the highly heterogeneous structure of collaborative communities. However, we still have limited theoretical understanding of how individual heterogeneity relates to network heterogeneity. The model presented here provides a framework linking an individual’s skill set to her position in the collaboration network, and the distribution of skills in the population to the structure of the collaboration network as a whole. This model suggests that there is a non-trivial relationship between skills and network position: individuals with a useful combination of skills will have a disproportionate number of links in the network. Indeed, in some cases, an individual’s degree is non-monotonic in the number of skills she has—an individual with very few skills may outperform an individual with many. Special cases of the model suggest that the degree distribution of the network will be skewed, even when the distribution of skills is uniform in the population. The degree distribution becomes more skewed as problems become more difficult, leading to a community dominated by a few high-degree superstars. This has striking implications for labor market outcomes in industries where production is largely the result of collaborative effort.

In exploring his concept of interactional expertise in the context of managers of big science projects, Collins identifies the development and deployment tacit knowledge as central, but acknowledges that sociologically, he cannot probe the concept further in developmental or pedagogical directions. In using the term tacit knowledge, Collins relies on the concept as articulated by Michael Polanyi. In coining the term, Polanyi acknowledges his reliance on Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world.  This paper explores how Polanyi, and so Collins, fails to adequately ground the idea of the tacit in Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. In so doing, it employs a rereading of Being and Time to phenomenologically resituate the tacit. This resituating of the tacit allows us to go further than Collins in providing developmental and pedagogical approaches to the tacit in the context of the kind of interactional expertise that may be employed to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative, multi-and interdisciplinary teams like those found in team science and in professional settings like healthcare management. As illustrative, the paper provides an example of this resituated understanding of the tacit in the author’s work teaching in a multidisciplinary healthcare management program.