Transdisciplinary Center Research Articles

A Model of Integrative Medicine for Health Care in Contemporary Society

Paulo Nuno Martins1-3* Author Affiliations 1International Center for Transdisciplinary Research, CIRET, France 2Transdisciplinary Center for Consciousness Studies, CTEC, University Fernando Pessoa of Oporto, Portugal 3Interuniversity Center for History of Science and Technology, CIUHCT, New University of Lisbon, Portugal Received:April 20, 2020 | Published: June 12, 2020 Corresponding author:Paulo Nuno Martins, International Center for Transdisciplinary Research, CIRET, France; Transdisciplinary Center for Consciousness Studies, CTEC, University Fernando Pessoa of Oporto, Portugal; Interuniversity Center for History of Science and Technology, CIUHCT, New University of Lisbon, Portugal DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2020.28.004625

A Participatory Evaluation Framework for the Implementation of a Transdisciplinary Center for Health Disparities Research.

This article describes the participatory evaluation framework for the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center for Health Disparities Research (TCC) funded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities. In collaboration with TCC stakeholders, logic models, the McKinlay model, and process and outcome evaluation plans, including quantitative and qualitative methods, have been developed and used to document the impact of the TCC. The McKinlay model, a widely used comprehensive health model for eliminating health disparities, was also tailored to document the outcomes of the TCC. The process and outcome evaluation plans for the TCC guide continuous improvement and the achievement of its specific aims. The evaluation of the TCC occurred between 2012 and 2019 and involved key stakeholders in TCC research and programming. Several challenges exist for implementing an evaluation plan of a health equity-focused policy research center. However, we learned several lessons that will ensure progress toward specific aims and will help the TCC serve as a model for similar programs and centers.

Government Service as a Public and Personal Good.

The concerted, strategic efforts of government leaders can create rapid accelerations in knowledge and the application of that knowledge for the public good. Government service can represent part or all of one's career. Working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) early in my career helped me develop a macro-level understanding of how the NIH operates, what forces propel change, how priorities are set, and how programs are developed. While leading a large division at the National Cancer Institute later in my career, after many years in a research institution and academia, we created new models for collaboration, including transdisciplinary centers, the first NIH unit focused on dissemination (now implementation science), and tools that enabled citizens, scientists, and others to access and use effective interventions, new data sets, and ways to aggregate data to show local cancer profiles. In this article, I provide my own career as an example of the opportunities afforded by federal service-for both individuals in government service and the public good.

Networks of Collaboration among Scientists in a Center for Diabetes Translation Research.

BackgroundTransdisciplinary collaboration is essential in addressing the translation gap between scientific discovery and delivery of evidence-based interventions to prevent and treat diabetes. We examined patterns of collaboration among scientists at the Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research.MethodsMembers (n = 56) of the Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research were surveyed about collaboration overall and on publications, presentations, and grants; 87.5% responded (n = 49). We used traditional and network descriptive statistics and visualization to examine the networks and exponential random graph modeling to identify predictors of collaboration.ResultsThe 56 network members represented nine disciplines. On average, network members had been affiliated with the center for 3.86 years (s.d. = 1.41). The director was by far the most central in all networks. The overall and publication networks were the densest, while the overall and grant networks were the most centralized. The grant network was the most transdisciplinary. The presentation network was the least dense, least centralized, and least transdisciplinary. For every year of center affiliation, network members were 10% more likely to collaborate (OR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.00–1.21) and 13% more likely to write a paper together (OR: 1.13; 95% CI: 1.02–1.25). Network members in the same discipline were over twice as likely to collaborate in the overall network (OR: 2.10; 95% CI: 1.40–3.15); however, discipline was not associated with collaboration in the other networks. Rank was not associated with collaboration in any network.ConclusionsAs transdisciplinary centers become more common, it is important to identify structural features, such as a central leader and ongoing collaboration over time, associated with scholarly productivity and, ultimately, with advancing science and practice.

Achieving the promise of transdisciplinarity: a critical exploration of the relationship between transdisciplinary research and societal problem solving

Transdisciplinarity is often presented as a way to effectively use scientific research to contribute to societal problem solving for sustainability. The aim of this paper is to critically explore this statement. This is done in two ways. First, a literature survey of transdisciplinary research is used to identify the assumptions that underlie the positive relationship between transdisciplinarity and societal problem solving for sustainability. This mapping identifies the claim that in-depth participation of users and the integration of relevant knowledge from both practice and research in real-world problem contexts produce socially robust results that contribute to sustainability. Second, the ability to live up to this claim is presented and discussed in five case study projects from Mistra Urban Futures, a transdisciplinary center in Goteborg, Sweden. The conclusions show that transdisciplinary processes, which fulfill the above conditions, do produce different types of socially robust knowledge, but this does not necessarily result in the ability to influence change in a sustainable direction. This instead creates a paradox in that the participation of stakeholders and the integration of knowledge from diverse sources require spaces that are both embedded in and insulated from practice and science proper. Such spaces produce results that are not easily aligned with sector-based target groups and formal policy processes. Institutionalizing transdisciplinarity in a boundary organization therefore solves some problems regarding participation and balanced problem ownership. However, it also creates new, hybrid problems, regarding knowledge transfer and scalability, which bridge the boundaries and challenge the praxis of planning and policy making.

Establishing the Infrastructure to Comprehensively Address Cancer Disparities: A Model for Transdisciplinary Approaches

The Center for Equal Health (CEH), a transdisciplinary Center of Excellence, was established to investigate cancer disparities comprehensively and achieve health equity through research, education, training, and community outreach. This paper discusses challenges faced by CEH, strategies employed to foster collaborations, lessons learned, and future considerations for establishing similar initiatives.

Confessions of a team science funder

Confessions of a team science funder

Assessing the Value of Team Science: A Study Comparing Center- and Investigator-Initiated Grants

Large cross-disciplinary scientific teams are becoming increasingly prominent in the conduct of research. This paper reports on a quasi-experimental longitudinal study conducted to compare bibliometric indicators of scientific collaboration, productivity, and impact of center-based transdisciplinary team science initiatives and traditional investigator-initiated grants in the same field. All grants began between 1994 and 2004 and up to 10 years of publication data were collected for each grant. Publication information was compiled and analyzed during the spring and summer of 2010. Following an initial lag period, the transdisciplinary research center grants had higher overall publication rates than the investigator-initiated R01 (NIH Research Project Grant Program) grants. There were relatively uniform publication rates across the research center grants compared to dramatically dispersed publication rates among the R01 grants. On average, publications produced by the research center grants had greater numbers of coauthors but similar journal impact factors compared with publications produced by the R01 grants. The lag in productivity among the transdisciplinary center grants was offset by their overall higher publication rates and average number of coauthors per publication, relative to investigator-initiated grants, over the 10-year comparison period. The findings suggest that transdisciplinary center grants create benefits for both scientific productivity and collaboration.