Research domains
Team assessment can be applicable to any domain. They are especially relevant in situations where the work of a team would be assessed, for example in funding applications or in recognition and awards.
Context and considerations
Team assessment could be realised in a number of ways. For example, team assessment could be implemented at funding application by asking applicants to submit a team-CV rather than individual CVs and profiles. This is currently done at UK Research and Innovations (UKRI) where teams are asked to submit only one Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) when applying for project funding as a team. In other settings, team assessment could be allowing teams to apply for awards or distinctions.
Experiments looking at team assessment could look at the implications of implementing team-level assessment on the efficiency and outcomes of the assessment process. For instance, they could look at the diversity of teams that are selected as a result, the types of research roles that are being fostered, and any impact these have on complementarity of skills, outputs, or other elements of the research culture.
Challenges and mitigations
Evaluating success
Relevant resources and literature
S., Harrison, T. R., Wang, J., Huang, Q., … Bixby, J. L. (2021). Developing and evaluating a team development intervention to support interdisciplinary teams. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 5(1), e166. https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2021.831
Templates from funders and institutions
The ‘Diversity Approach to Research Evaluation’ (DARE) proposes a way to assess how researchers engaged in knowledge creation and application work together as teams. See Bone, F., Hopkins, M. M., Ràfols, I., Molas-Gallart, J., Tang, P., Davey, G., & Carr, A. M. (2020) DARE to be different? A novel approach for analysing diversity in collaborative research projects, Research Evaluation, 29(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaa006
Anothe similar framework meant to capture team dynamics is available in Mazumdar, M., Messinger, S., Finkelstein, D. M., Goldberg, J. D., Lindsell, C. J., Morton, S. C., Pollock, B. H., Rahbar, M. H., Welty, L. J., Parker, R. A., Biostatistics, E., Research Design Key Function Committee of the, C., & Translational Science Awards, C. (2015). Evaluating Academic Scientists Collaborating in Team-Based Research: A Proposed Framework. Academic Medicine, 90(10), 1302–1308. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000759
The Alliance for Life Sciences (A4L) report **From Strategies to Actions in Central and Eastern Europe describes in it’s Case Study 2 a broad team assessment in which the task of the evaluation was “not only to analyse the scientific quality and the results and contributions of the teams for specific areas of research, but also to evaluate the quality of the management of each research team and its financial sustainability.”
Case examples and literature
The **NWO The Team Science Award rewards “inspiring and successful team of researchers from various disciplinary fields, who jointly take on a scientific challenge in which their individual strengths and expertise demonstrably reinforce each other”.
The Spinoza and the Stevin prizes – the highest research recognitions in The Netherlands – are now also open to team applications.
UK Research and Innovations (UKRI) asks applicants to team projects to [submit only one Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI)]https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/develop-your-application/resume-for-research-and-innovation-r4ri-guidance(https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/develop-your-application/resume-for-research-and-innovation-r4ri-guidance/) when applying for project.
The Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) from Advance HE is an award scheme meant to recognise collaborative work that has had a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning.
Other resources
Bothwell, E. (2019, 14 October). Award Nobels to teams, not individual ‘heroes’, say scientists. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/award-nobels-teams-not-individual-heroes-say-scientists
The CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) enables visibility of team dynamics and contributions and may be useful in recognition of teams. See for example:
- Allen, L., O’Connell, A., & Kiermer, V. (2019). How can we ensure visibility and diversity in research contributions? How the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) is helping the shift from authorship to contributorship. Learned Publishing, 32(1). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1210
- McNutt, M. K., Bradford, M., Drazen, J. M., Hanson, B., Howard, B., Jamieson, K. H., Kiermer, V., Marcus, E., Pope, B. K., Schekman, R., Swaminathan, S., Stang, P. J., & Verma, I. M. (2018). Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115
Mishra, J. (2015). Choosing team over tenure. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit.a1500258)