The US National Science Foundation (NSF) Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) Program recognizes the “intellectual potential” of large-scale, international, collaborative research networks in advancing the frontiers of science and training the next generation of U.S. researchers (NSF 2018). Understood as “established, coordinated, distributed group[s] of scientific researchers who cooperate within or across fields to collect and share resources, knowledge, and expertise” (NSF 2020), these networks of networks (NoN) can enable internationally distributed scientific researchers to collectively identify gaps in knowledge and areas for future research. This panel will present case study perspectives on NoNs followed by data collected through interviews and surveys of AccelNet project investigators, concluding with a discussion of how team science processes can support such large scale efforts.

The X-lites case study will focus on a NoN promoting research collaboration around the science and technology of extreme light sources (laser technologies that enable ultrashort time pulses, ultra-high electric fields, or ultra-high spatial resolution). This NoN is a two-layer network, with one layer being facilities that develop, operate, and maintain these specialized systems and the second layer being the researchers who use the facilities for their research. X-lites has used an AccelNet development grant to explore how to strengthen the connections across this multilayer network to advance scientific discoveries.

The Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS) is a community-driven, international initiative strategically aligning the deep ocean observing community toward collective solution-based science. It is a project of the Global Ocean Observing System (led by IOC-UNESCO) and endorsed by the United Nations Ocean Decade. But within this broadly distributed global context how does one truly create an aligned community of networks of networks? The DOOS case study will focus on the importance of aligning individual efforts toward shared aims, ensuring that value is added to participants, and leveraging existing efforts and resources.

MultiNet is an international mobility program that fosters advances in the field of multilayer network science. This field, which has been growing fast over the past decade, deals with network systems made of different layers, which typically represent different types of interactions between the same set of nodes. MultiNet has built the NoN via semester-long exchanges of junior research personnel, both graduate students and postdocs, from US-based institutions to the rest of the world, and vice versa. Many exchanges have involved labs that never interacted before, achieving the goal of enlarging the existing NoN on multilayer network science and forming a more cohesive community.

The goal of the INFRAMES (International Network for Researching, Advancing, and Assessing Materials for Environmental Sustainability) network of networks is to improve the sustainability of materials that interact with our natural environments at global scale. Our team applies methods from Integration and Implementation Sciences (I2S) and the Science of Team Science to enable convergent research by orienting our focus around named boundary objects that anchor our shared inquiry. Our NoN brings together diverse researchers and other interested parties to harness knowledge developments of the past 20 years in the nanomaterial environment, health and safety community globally, and transform and apply these approaches to priority processes involving the interaction of advanced and nanoscale materials with complex natural environments.

TJ Ronningen is a Research Scientist in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at The Ohio State University. TJ supports large, multi-institution projects as a project manager or systems lead. TJ’s collaborations are connected through applied optics and branch across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Leslie Smith is an oceanographer and the Director of the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy. She works at the nexus point between research, communication, and program management through her company, Your Ocean Consulting, LLC.

Santo Fortunato is a Professor at Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering of Indiana University. His focus areas are network science, especially community detection in graphs, computational social science and science of science. 

Christine Ogilvie Hendren is Interim Director of Research and Innovation and Professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Appalachian State University. She also leads transdisciplinary and convergence research teams drawing on the discipline of I2S and SciTS to design and guide methods for boundary spanning knowledge production to address wicked socio environmental problems. 

Marisa Rinkus is an Associate Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at Michigan State University. She has led team science related research and client-based projects for the NSF and multiple universities in the US.