Mobilizing cross-disciplinary teams to advance translational research using design thinking methods

Abstract

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New directions in cancer and aging: State of the science and recommendations to improve the quality of evidence on the intersection of aging with cancer control

“…By using affinity mapping, 14 a method organizing information into related categories, participants grouped the resulting 223 research topics into clusters and assigned overarching themes to each cluster. Each attendee was provided 3 interest cards displaying their name, picture, and affiliation, which they were asked to place next to any of the clusters/theme(s) they were most interested in pursuing 11 . These structured activities provided an instant visual representation of the groups’ priority research areas and an understanding of where individual interests mapped.…”

“…Funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the US National Institutes of Health, MICHR is a unique institute that acts as a catalytic partner to support research teams at U-M. MICHR uses various design thinking principles to create Research Jams, 10,11 which are facilitated brainstorming sessions that bring together new groups to collaboratively surface novel research ideas, build working groups, and identify next steps. In partnership with MICHR, we held a onehalf-day virtual Research Jam for 32 faculty, staff, and community members representing 16 U-M departments/ units and 2 community organizations.…”

Introduction to the themed issue on the design, development, evaluation, and dissemination of team science interventions in clinical and translational research

“…• Team science interventions can and should occur at multiple levels, from workshops for individuals to whole-team activities to improve teamwork to institution-wide approaches to facilitating team science [10][11][12]. These interventions should integrate with the increasing number of training opportunities being offered by CTSA hubs, creating "cradleto-grave" support for teams and the individuals who comprise them [10,[12][13][14]. Teams may need some or all of these interventions.…”

“…The SciTS field needs more rigorous methods for every stage of the intervention development process, but we do not need to start from scratch. As proposed in this issue, the fields of human-centered design, implementation science, and health intervention development can be leveraged to develop methods specifically geared toward meeting the needs of translational teams [14][15][16][17]. Special attention is needed for the evaluation and dissemination/implementation stages of intervention development if we are to make claims of efficacy and effectiveness for our interventions.…”

“…• Many, if not most, of the interventions described here require facilitation by team science experts, raising issues of scalability [6,8,14]. The SciTS field remains relatively small, in part because of a lack of explicit training or career paths and in part because of the challenges of funding such positions.…”