Complex scientific challenges increasingly depend on cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaboration, yet many research teams still struggle with psychological safety, shared purpose, and healthy ways of working together. The Co-Active Coaching principles of Fulfillment, Balance, and Process are a practical, human-centered framework for strengthening the day-to-day experience and effectiveness of team science. Drawing on practice-based work with research scientists, principal investigators, and integrative team roles, we want to showcase how these principles can be translated into simple, repeatable conversational tools that enhance collaboration, creativity, and resilience in scientific teams.

The Co-Active model, originally developed for individual and leadership coaching, centers on three foundational dimensions: Fulfillment (connection to purpose, values, and meaning), Balance (navigating choices and perspectives intentionally), and Process (engaging constructively with emotions, dynamics, and the “here-and-now” of experience). When adapted to team science contexts, these principles provide a flexible scaffold that can be overlaid on existing project structures, methods, and governance. Rather than replacing formal team-science frameworks, they add a human-centered layer that helps teams surface motivations, expand thinking, and stay engaged when work becomes complex, ambiguous, or emotionally charged.

We will share practice-based observations from applying Co-Active principles in laboratory and interdisciplinary team settings. In one lab, the introduction of brief Fulfillment check-ins—inviting members to reconnect with the personal and societal meaning of their work—was associated with more creative hypothesis generation and a greater sense of shared ownership for the scientific questions being asked. Across several cross-disciplinary teams, structured Balance conversations helped reduce cycles of negativity and perceived “stuckness” by inviting members to deliberately explore multiple perspectives, articulate trade-offs, and design small, testable next steps. These patterns appeared especially salient in interdisciplinary collaborations where teams from different disciplinary and organizational backgrounds needed to integrate methods, expectations, and success criteria.

In addition to describing the core principles and examples, the session will outline concrete practices that team leaders, integration specialists, and facilitators can adapt immediately, such as values-based Fulfillment prompts for meetings, Balance-oriented decision dialogues that make assumptions explicit, and Process pauses that normalize emotion and uncertainty without derailing progress. The emphasis will be on low-friction interventions that can be embedded within existing meetings, supervision structures, and collaborative routines rather than requiring large-scale redesign.

By the end of the presentation, attendees will be able to (1) articulate how Fulfillment, Balance, and Process map onto common challenges in team science; (2) recognize when a Fulfillment-, Balance-, or Process-focused intervention may be most helpful in their own collaborations; and (3) identify at least one concrete conversational practice they can pilot in their teams or training programs.

For the INSciTS community, this work contributes a practice-informed framework for professional development and integration roles, highlighting how coaching-based approaches can complement structural and methodological advances in the science of team science.