Over a year ago, the team science specialist at the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR), the Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) of the state of Michigan, brought together a diverse group of individuals from various cores to meet weekly and consider topics in broadly engaged team science, especially the inclusion of community partners. Each of the four learning communities implemented thus far has had a different focus and slightly different members.

CTSAs across the consortium of funded institutes through the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) have been charged with translational science. One principle of translational science that NCATS finds important is to “leverage cross-disciplinary team science (1)." They encourage research that has team members “with expertise across disciplines, fields, and professions to produce research that advances translation along the translational research continuum (1)."

Within MICHR, the staff-driven broadly engaged team science learning community set out to begin to dialogue and ideate about topics in team science, especially as it relates to engaging community partners in teams.

Over the last year and a half, this group has implemented four distinct rounds of the learning community around various topics in broadly engaged team science. This group used a weekly format where one member presented a training module, article, podcast, or brought their own programmatic innovation to the group for a consultation. The topic of the learning community, which changed quarterly to engage new MICHR staff members, guided the structured presentations and discussions within the team.

The group at MICHR has increased members’ knowledge through reviewing over 30 articles and resources around broadly engaged team science themes, including community engagement, theory of team science, evaluation for impact, training, and integration of the arts. During the third learning community after reviewing the article by Mendell et al. (2), within the Journal of Clinical & Translational Science, the members composed a commentary of the article which encouraged teams to embrace non-linearity in team sciences competencies (3). A new project at MICHR recently emerged and this learning community was well poised to lead the project to study how to integrate the arts within translational science.

Inter-institute outcomes have also been collected around knowledge gained and value to members. One member said “I've learned that it takes intentional effort to create a space where co-workers can learn from each other and from outside wisdom beyond the boundaries of their daily tasks.” While another commented “I really enjoy that our broadly engaged team science staff group creates a space for continuous learning, collaboration, and problem-solving.” For the value they saw for themselves and the institute, one said “multidisciplinary team building in a uniquely curated space where vulnerability, learning, teaching, and creativity are championed.” Another commenter responded that the learning community brought “joy, creativity, a commentary that noticed a gap in the literature and could only be filled by integrating our multiple perspectives, commitment to each other's professional growth, courage and social capital to try bold experiments.” This team led to better teaming through “creating a real sense of community for group members” and “the creation of scientific common ground on which novel collaborations have been built.”

At one CTSA, grassroots peer-driven and lead professional development opportunities can lead to fruitful discovery, growth, and innovative collaborations around broadly engaged team science.