Innovation Labs to Enhance Collaboration

Building on the science of team science and preliminary work at the Buffalo and Vanderbilt CTSAs, the investigators worked with industry partner Knowinnovation to implement, assess, and disseminate an innovative and promising method for stimulating and nurturing new transdisciplinary research teams across the CTSA Program consortium: Innovation Labs. The study focused on early career investigators. The study took a translational science approach to identify and test "best practices". To accomplish this, the study critically evaluated the impact of Innovation Labs in two preliminary randomized controlled trials (RCTs). In collaboration with NCATs and broad input from the CTSA network, the investigators developed a clinical and translational research grand challenge focus for each Innovation Lab. A diverse applicant pool of early career investigators invited from every CTSA hub in the consortium was reviewed, and top applicants were randomized to a 5-day residential Innovation Lab or "treatment as usual" control group. Measures of process and outcome were collected from the application phase through 12-month follow-up and aggregated across the two RCTs. Given the preliminary nature of the work and an emerging consensus regarding the science of team science, primary outcomes were measures of the depth and breadth of participants collaborative networks and attitudes towards collaboration, which were predicted to be enhanced in the Innovation Lab group compared to the treatment as usual control group. Initial data on the degree to which Innovation Labs resulted in increased transdisciplinary collaborative output were also examined.