The success of teams built on purpose

Successful research collaborations don't just happen, they are constructed. To build a research team one first needs to know what contributes to successful team functioning and what impedes the development of a productive one. Next, one needs to learn how to build and sustain successful research teams. That is, one must be able to apply the theory by putting it into practice.

As academia becomes ever more specialized, researchers increasingly need the support, input, and expertise of colleagues from other research fields to move their efforts forward. Yet, bringing together individuals from various disciplines, methodological approaches, and technical specialties, who may be at different stages of their careers and from different cultural backgrounds, can have its challenges.

Many such collaborations are formed when researchers who share a common interest come together to tackle a problem of shared concern or achieve an agreed- upon goal. Sometimes they realize they need to add other skill sets, expertise, and connections to the project, and the team grows bigger. People from different disciplines bring expectations, norms, and ways of thinking that are distinct to their field and educational background. Collaborators should make a point of becoming aware of these working differences as early as possible so they can reconcile conflicting views and integrate them into a highly functioning group. There is an old saying that there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’. While that may be true, the team can only form through the assembly of individuals and intentional work to become a team. There is emerging recognition that intentional team development is an essential collaborative research skill (Lotrecchiano, Bennett, and Vovides, 2023).