Valuing Collaboration and Collaborators

ollaboration and Team Science The time required to move an innovation from the laboratory and into practice is measured in decades and often leads to failure (1). NIH created the National Center for Advanced Therapeutics https://ncats.nih.gov/programs to house the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program and other initiatives intended to propel new ways to reduce this time, in part, by creating better ‘hand-offs’ between laboratory/bench scientists, clinician-scientists, and community health practitioners. Improved translation of research is just one strategy to move biomedical advances more quickly from concept to practice. Many problems we have yet to solve in and outside of the biomedical arena are complex. They require larger teams with specialized expertise to solve them, particularly to acquire and analyze data sets. This collaborative activity is often called Team Science. The research suggests inclusive teams where all members are valued improves the profile of the research (2).