Investments in interdisciplinary collaborations in STEM fields have increased [1]. However, there is still a lack of integration between STEM fields and social sciences [2]. Developing convergent and translational research should challenge STEM investigators to pay attention to non-technical components of collaboration, and engage with investigators from the social sciences [3]. Unfortunately, a focus on the technical aspects of collaboration might encourage complacency about the potential contributions of social sciences and importance of social impact [4]. Diverse research teams outperform homogeneous ones on a wide variety of measures, including innovation [5]. Diverse science, medicine, and engineering teams are also more likely to achieve societal gains, including the well-being of individuals and workforce competitiveness.

Our research and practice focuses on developing and studying inclusive team science in cooperative research centers focused on STEM domains. We have noted that there is still limited inclusion of underrepresented demographic groups, but also lack of inclusion of social scientists in Engineering Research Centers (ERC) and Science and Technology Centers (STC).  Recent studies find that there is higher representation of women, BIPOC, and disabled persons in social sciences than in physical sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering [6].

Our research examines the following questions. 1. Would the inclusion of social scientists in STEM research teams enhance creativity and the likelihood of transformational innovation? 2. Would inclusion of social scientists in STEM collaborations facilitate participation of demographic groups that are more highly represented in social sciences than STEM? 3. Are additional mechanisms needed to move these boundary spanners into leadership roles? In our current data collection we build on our prior findings to explore whether more central involvement of social scientists in science, medicine, and engineering teams influences team outcomes. We will use data from CVs of leaders in cooperative research centers (ERC, STC) and from these centers to examine the potential impact of demographic characteristics, education, and experience of team leaders on innovation and societal impact of their teams.