Overview

Broadly engaged team science is an approach that merges team science and community-engaged research, emphasizing the synergies between the two and going beyond involving stakeholders as advisors to include them as full team members.

Tufts CTSI includes broadly engaged team science as one of our foundational pillars of success. As an organization we are committed to involving a broad array of stakeholders in health research, from project inception to completion, and then dissemination and implementation.

Read our paper, From Community Engagement, to Community-Engaged Research, to Broadly Engaged Team Science (J Clin Transl Sci. 2017 Feb; 1(1): 5–6.).

Broadly Engaged Team Science in Clinical and Translational Research

In 2021, Tufts CTSI worked to understand how broadly engaged team science was being implemented by researchers, academic administrators, clinicians, and community partners. We identified a range of activity and collected broadly engaged team science perspectives and practices. This collection was published by Springer in a 25-chapter book, Broadly Engaged Team Science in Clinical and Translational Research, that is a critical step towards organizing broadly engaged team science and advancing its practices.

The book includes sections on:

  • Transforming research with broad engagement
  • Integrating communities and stakeholders into broadly engaged team science
  • Applying broadly engaged team science, and
  • Creating an institutional environment of support for broadly engaged team science.

Read our press release about the book.

We also curated a Resource Guide (PDF) that includes broadly engaged team science concepts and theories, implementation strategies and practices, methodological considerations, and evaluation.

Buy the book (hardcover or eBook) from Springer here.

Or buy the book from other online stores here and here.

“This book reflects our journey in building and supporting broadly engaged team science by documenting current perspectives and practices, and reflecting our continuing challenges to innovate and to foster widespread implementation.”
– Alice M. Rushforth, PhD and Harry P. Selker, MD, MSPH

“In this book, broadly engaged team science is re-imagined as a distinct scientific approach that is substantive, complex and purpose-driven, that draws upon three strands of scientific thought: a science in society perspective, team science, and community and stakeholder engaged research.”

– Debra Lerner, MSc, PhD; Thomas W. Concannon, PhD; and Marisha E. Palm, MSc, PhD

Tufts CTSI’s commitment to broadly engaged team science as one of our foundational pillars has led us to develop resources, create consultation services to engagement, and design courses and workshops. This page showcases some of the work we have done in this area, and links to relevant programs that are working together to broadly engage stakeholders in team science at Tufts and our partner sites.

Resources, tools, and partnerships

Consultation services for building broadly engaged teams

Consultations can support:

Tufts CTSI also supports broadly engaged teams via:

  • Bi-annual Team Science Summits brings together researchers, stakeholders, and community members with high collaborative potential to spawn new research ideas.
  • Junior Faculty Research Career Development Forum investigates team science challenges for underrepresented minority and women faculty.

Submit a service request to get started.

Courses and workshops

  • Seminars, workshops, and symposia via Tufts CTSI I LEARN
  • COALESCE is a free online educational resource introducing the science of team science (SciTS). Developed by Northwestern University for the CTSA Consortium
  • Foundations of Team Science is training that Tufts CTSI and the Tufts University Office of Research Development created to provide an evidence-based framework for effective collaboration planning that is adaptable to diverse research domains and settings.
  • Health Care Activism, Community Health, and Patient-Centered Research is a Tufts University School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences course about the “Three Traditions of Engagement,” taught by Drs. Concannon and Palm. Read the syllabus (PDF).

Programs

Broadly engaged team science is woven into all of our processes and practices at Tufts CTSI. The programs below lead the support and implementation of broadly engaged team science.

Contact

To contact us, please submit a service request.