The Science of Team Science (SciTS) has generated a substantial body of work detailing characteristics of effective teams. However, that knowledge has not been widely translated into accessible, active, actionable, evidence-based interventions to help translational teams enhance their team functioning and outcomes. Over the past decade, the field of Implementation Science has rapidly developed methods and approaches to increase the translation of biomedical research findings into clinical care, providing a roadmap for mitigating the challenges of developing interventions while maximizing feasibility and utility. Here, we propose an approach to intervention development using constructs from two Implementation Science frameworks, Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, and Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance, to extend the Wisconsin Interventions for Team Science framework described in Rolland et al. 2021. These Implementation Science constructs can help SciTS researchers design, build, test, and disseminate interventions that meet the needs of both adopters, the institutional leadership that decides whether to adopt an intervention, and implementers, those actually using the intervention. Systematically considering the impact of design decisions on feasibility and usability may lead to the design of interventions that can quickly move from prototype to pilot test to pragmatic trials to assess their impact.

A translational team (TT) is a specific type of interdisciplinary team that seeks to improve human health. Because high-performing TTs are critical to accomplishing CTSA goals, a greater understanding of how to promote TT performance is needed. Previous work by a CTSA Workgroup formulated a taxonomy of 5 interrelated team-emergent competency “domains” for successful translation: 1). affect, 2). communication, 3). management, 4). collaborative problem-solving, and 5). leadership. These Knowledge Skills and Attitudes (KSAs) develop within teams from the team’s interactions. However, understanding how practice in these domains enhance team performance was unaddressed. To fill this gap, we conducted a scoping literature review of empirical team studies from the broader Science of Team Science literature domains. We identified specific team-emergent KSAs that enhance TT performance, mapped these to the earlier “domain” taxonomy, and developed a rubric for their assessment. This work identifies important areas of intersection of practices in specific competencies across other competency domains. We find that inclusive environment, openness to transdisciplinary knowledge sharing, and situational leadership are a core triad of team-emergent competencies that reinforce each other and are highly linked to team performance. Finally, we identify strategies for enhancing these competencies. This work provides a grounded approach for training interventions in the CTSA context.

The pervasive problem of irreproducibility of preclinical research represents a substantial threat to the translation of CTSA-generated health interventions. Key stakeholders in the research process have proposed solutions to this challenge to encourage research practices that improve reproducibility. However, these proposals have had minimal impact, because they either 1. take place too late in the research process, 2. focus exclusively on the products of research instead of the processes of research, and/or 3. fail to take into account the driving incentives in the research enterprise. Because so much clinical and translational science is team-based, CTSA hubs have a unique opportunity to leverage Science of Team Science research to implement and support innovative, evidence-based, team-focused, reproducibility-enhancing activities at a project's start, and across its evolution. Here, we describe the impact of irreproducibility on clinical and translational science, review its origins, and then describe stakeholders' efforts to impact reproducibility, and why those efforts may not have the desired effect. Based on team-science best practices and principles of scientific integrity, we then propose ways for Translational Teams to build reproducible behaviors. We end with suggestions for how CTSAs can leverage team-based best practices and identify observable behaviors that indicate a culture of reproducible research.

The University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (UW-ICTR) hub supports multiple pilot award programs that engage cross-disciplinary Translational Teams. To support those teams, our Team Science group aims to offer a learning experience that is accessible, active, and actionable. We identified Collaboration Planning as a high-impact intervention to stimulate team-building activities that provide Translational Team members with the skills to lead and participate in high-impact teams. We adapted the published materials on Collaboration Planning [1,2] to develop a 90-minute facilitated intervention with questions in ten areas, presuming no previous knowledge of Science of Team Science (SciTS) or team-science best practices. Attendees received a short follow-up survey and submitted a written Collaboration Plan with their first quarterly progress report. Thirty-nine participants from 13 pilot teams from a wide range of disciplines engaged in these sessions. We found that teams struggled to know who to invite, that some of our questions were confusing and too grounded in the language of SciTS, and groups lacked plans for managing their information and communications. We identified several areas for improvement including ensuring the process is flexible to meet the needs of different teams, continuing to evolve the questions so they resonate with teams, and the need to provide resources for areas where teams needed additional guidance, including information and data management, authorship policies, and conflict management. With further development and testing, Collaboration Planning has the potential to support Translational Teams in developing strong team dynamics and team functioning.

Achieving the clinical, public health, economic, and policy benefits of translational science requires the integration and application of findings across biomedical, clinical, and behavioral science and health policy, and thus, collaboration across experts in these areas. To do so, translational teams need the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to mitigate challenges and build on strengths of cross-disciplinary collaboration. Though these competencies are not innate to teams, they can be built through the implementation of effective strategies and interventions. The Science of Team Science (SciTS) has contributed robust theories and evidence of empirically-informed strategies and best practices to enhance collaboration. Yet the field lacks methodological approaches to rigorously translate those strategies into evidence-based interventions to improve collaborative translational research. Here, we apply lessons from Implementation Science and Human-Centered Design & Engineering to describe the Wisconsin Interventions in Team Science (WITS) framework, a process for translating established team science strategies into evidence-based interventions to bolster translational team effectiveness. To illustrate our use of WITS, we describe how University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Research translated the existing Collaboration Planning framework into a robust, scalable, replicable intervention. We conclude with recommendations for future SciTS research to refine and test the framework.

Background: Delivering evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment in oncology settings improves smoking abstinence and cancer outcomes. Leadership engagement/buy-in is critical for implementation success, but few studies have defined buy-in or described how to secure buy-in for tobacco treatment programs (TTPs) in cancer care. This study examines buy-in during the establishment of tobacco treatment programs at National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers. Methods: We utilized a sequential, explanatory mixed-methods approach to analyze quantitative data and qualitative interviews with program leads in the U.S.-based NCI Moonshot-supported Cancer Center Cessation Initiative (n = 20 Centers). We calculated descriptive statistics and applied structural coding and content analysis to qualitative data. Results: At least 75% of participating centers secured health care system administrative, clinical, and IT leadership buy-in and support. Six themes emerged from interviews: engaging leadership, access to resources, leveraging federal funding support to build leadership interest, designating champions, identifying training needs, and ensuring staff roles and IT systems support workflows. Conclusions: Buy-in among staff and clinicians is defined by the belief that the TTP is necessary, valuable, and evidence based. Recognizing and securing these dimensions of buy-in can facilitate implementation success, leading to improved cancer outcomes.