Research Team

While you alone may have identified a need, conducting research is a team endeavor. In order to answer your research question, you’ll need mentors to guide you, collaborators to work alongside you, staff to provide administrative and clinical support, and any number of other stakeholders to provide specific input and services. Get to know the traditional roles of the research team here before moving on in the research process.

What is Team Science?
  • Team Science
    • Team science is the collaborative effort of scientists to address research challenges through working together in groups. Most scientific publications today are authored by two or more researchers, often from more than one institution, and/or from different disciplines.  Team science (TS) initiatives are designed to promote effective collaboration in these diverse research teams.
  • Science of Team Science
    • The Science of Team Science (SciTS) is a cross-disciplinary field that encompasses both conceptual and methodological strategies aimed at understanding and enhancing the processes and outcomes of collaborative, team-based research2. It tries to integrate and build on approaches from a variety of disciplines and fields in terms of its theories and methodologies in order to improve effective research team performance.
Know the Research Team Roles
Do You Need a Team?
  • Team Basics
    • Form a team if the task can benefit from one or more of the conditions listed in this checklist.
Forming Your Team
Build a Mentorship Team
  • Building a Mentorship Team
    • This NIH article outlines important elements for building successful teams.
  • Mentoring Toolkit
    • The CTSI-CN Mentoring Toolkit contains resources including mentoring contracts, individualized academic career plans, journal articles, mentoring program curricula and training materials, and assessment tools.
  • Making the Right Moves
    • Chapter 5: “Mentoring and Being Mentored” outlines important aspects of mentorship and strategies for effective mentoring in your lab.
  • Toolkit to Supporting a Mentorship Team (Assessment and Checklist)
    • This toolkit was developed to support mentorship relationships across departments: faculty mentorships (tenure, clinical health science (CHS) and clinician teacher (CT) tracks); faculty and clinical learner mentorships; and staff mentorships (clinical, educational, research and administrative).
Build a Community Advisory Board (CAB)
  • Framing Equity in CAB
    • Use these tips and resources to assist your healthcare organization with developing and maintaining an effective CAB
Managing Team Dynamics
  • Running Effective Meetings
    • This 8 minute long video module outlines the Seven Step Meeting, an established process that has been shown to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of meetings.

  • Team Meeting Facilitation
    • This guide provides an overview of specific competencies that are required to effectively run meetings.
  • Dealing with Conflict
    • This guide reviews types of conflict, and conflict management steps.
  • Building Trust
    • This guide provides an overview of building trust among team members, assessing trust, understanding gaps, and incorporating positive changes.
    • See Also: How to manage the Decision to Trust 
  • Encouraging Full Participation
    • This 11 minute long TEDx Talk focuses on building a psychologically safe workplace.

  • Managing Virtual Communication
    • This document outlines five ways to improve communication in virtual teams.
Monitoring and Evaluating Performance
Find Collaborators
  • GW Expert Finder
    • GW’s comprehensive university-wide information repository showcases faculty and researchers and their research, scholarship and expertise.
  • CTSI-CN Profile Search 
    • CTSI-CN Research Networking Software
  • Cross-Disciplinary Research
    • Resources and programs available to support GW faculty and investigators engaged in research across disciplines.
  • Association for Clinical and Translational Science
    • ACTS supports those who are committed to applying scientific methodologies to accelerate advances in human health.
  • Making the Right Moves
    • Chapter 12: “Setting up Collaborations” outlines the varieties of collaborations and provides recommendations for successful collaboration.
Events
Resources
Institutional Contacts