Research Insights

Over the last 30 years, cross-disciplinary research teams have grown in number not just at UGA but at universities around the country and the world. That’s because few, if any, real-world problems contain themselves neatly within the boundaries of our academic disciplines; they are complex. To combat and emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, we needed ideas assembled from a host of different perspectives.

The complexity of the world’s challenges and the need for highly functional teams is why we have devoted significant resources to programs that encourage team members to think BIG by visioning beyond the technical bounds of a single investigator. UGA’s Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants and the Office of Research Teaming for Interdisciplinary Research Pre-Seed program, along with other programs overseen by our Integrative Team Initiatives group, are intended to provide funding and support for those faculty who want to collaborate in pursuit of a larger research goal.

Most importantly, guidance and assistance are provided to researchers to allow them to spend “pre-teaming” time, first learning about each other’s expertise, perspective, angst and approach to problem solving. It is this all-important ingredient for collaboration that is most often overlooked but is paramount to healthy outcomes and high impact.

Federal agencies recognize the power of interdisciplinarity and have ramped up incentivization of team science—in the form of very large research awards which can reach into the eight and even nine figures in order to support many team members and an array of organizations. Indeed, in recent years UGA has been the lead recipient or prominent partner for large team awards in flu research (two awards, in fact), plant genetics and marine science, to name a few.

Last year the National Science Foundation (NSF) launched an entire directorate premised on the idea of collaborative research and translation. The agency’s Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate was created in early 2022 to advance research and education across all fields of science and engineering; the inclusion of the word “partnership” in the directorate name underscores the priority of collaboration to TIP.

Soon after the directorate was launched, TIP announced its first major funding initiative, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines program. Innovation Engines are intended to be coalition-based projects that leverage use-inspired technology innovation, workforce development and community member collaboration to catalyze new innovation ecosystems, particularly in regions where such ecosystems are underdeveloped or non-existent. “Type I” engine development awards are funded at relatively modest levels, solely for the purpose of planning, but each project team is encouraged to apply for a Type II award, which could mean as much as a $160 million investment by the NSF toward the execution of the team’s plan.

UGA is involved in four Type I awards, devoted to agriculture, biomedicine, cybersecurity and electric mobility. The UGA-led Next Generation Agriculture project, or NextGA, pulls together an alliance of more than 30 public and private organizations, all committed to fostering the adoption of “Agriculture 4.0” technologies and practices in a 20-county region of southwest Georgia. Working closely with local community members through UGA Cooperative Extension, the project’s goal is to build a framework that will serve as a national recipe for inclusive, community-driven collaboration to facilitate “innovation in place” in the rural communities that feed the United States and the world.

My point in detailing this new NSF directorate and the exciting Innovation Engines initiative is that funding for team research projects is rapidly growing at a very high rate. The need for interdisciplinarity through team science is clear, and the opportunity is now.

Leading an interdisciplinary team is not easy; most teams start with great enthusiasm but fade away before winning significant research awards or embarking on collaborative projects, which is why UGA has invested so heavily in resources to fund the initial steps of team formation. This investment helps investigators learn the all-important skills of leading research teams whose members have a wide distribution of perspectives, experiences and goals.

Associate Vice President Larry Hornak leads the Office of Research Integrative Team Initiatives, and I encourage you to reach out to him to learn more. We recently published a Q&A interview with Dr. Hornak in which he discussed many options available for aspiring team researchers. Also, earlier this month he led a Research Live webinar that included multiple faculty members who have led or been part of successful research teams.

The world has many complex challenges. So, as you pause and reflect during the winter break, consider those challenges as well as the potential impact that your research or creative works might have by connecting with other scholars who share a common passion for problem solving. When a team of committed researchers pulls together, appreciating each other’s talent and importance to a common goal, the impact can be monumental.

I wish you all a refreshing, reflective break. See you in 2024!

Karen J.L. Burg
Vice President for Research
Harbor Lights Chair in Biomedical Research