# Presentation: 305878

## What is Synthesis?

- Synthesis is a term used by scientists and analysts of science to represent a family of activities that ranges from assembling diverse data relevant to a research question to a near-Hegelian creation fashioned of apparently inconsistent constituent parts
- E.O Wilson used the vigorous and optimistic term “consilience” to connote the “jumping together” of disciplinary ideas into something of a grand unified theory of life
- Instead of the spontaneous affinity implied by consilience, we find that successful synthesis demands substantial energy and concentration to:
- alter patterns of social interaction
- change scientific cultures and purposes
- reconfigure graduate and postdoctoral training
- build necessary infrastructure and cyberstructure

## Synthesis — Interdisciplinary Collaboration

- Underlying the diversity of definitions of “synthesis” is a shared kernel of meaning
- In any of its various forms, synthesis means that two or more disparate elements are combined to produce a meaning, explanation, or product that is more extensive and powerful than its constituent parts
- Synthesis points to the need to bring together of diverse ideas, methods, and materials to produce an original explanation or solution through Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations (IRCs) with the goals being to achieve:
- Increased interactions
- Advanced understandings
- Expanded utilities
- Enhanced integrations

## Research suggests that:

- The lack of systematic planning at the proposal stage has meant that many centers have not been established with clear problem definitions or project definitions, often beginning with a “laundry list” of topics, affiliates and disciplines and evolving into a nexus of loosely connected individuals searching for possible intersections rather than settling into IRCs
- IRCs benefit from being housed in dedicated organizations that have multiple points of entry; offer neutral shared spaces; and are connected to but not bound by traditional academic norms and practices

## Research suggests that:

- IRCs benefit from being housed in long-term, stable institutions that have perfected the managerial practices, administrative processes, and resource procedures needed to support this type of work
- Within these organizations, IRCs often benefit from shorter-term project cycles and intermittent face-to-face interaction, which together avoid the feelings of ambivalence and closeness that come with too much exposure and can often interrupt interaction and suppress innovation after too much time

## Rate of connectivity among NCEAS Working Group participants is above average

**Density metrics across all groups (close and collegial)**

**1 SD above Mean**

**Mean**

**1 SD below Mean**

**The low number of groups below one standard deviation of the mean indicates that in almost all cases strong research networks have been established.**

## Research also suggests that:

- At the project level, IRCs benefit from joint ownership and mutual commitment by researchers; conditions which are often more observable when projects are organically designed by researchers rather than organizationally imposed by a research center
- At the institute level, centers function better with clearly articulated but loosely structured themes that allow researchers to create individual IRCs around their own topics while enabling centers to concentrate on maximizing the potential impact across the collectivity of IRCs in a few broad domains

## Research also suggests that:

- Within IRCs, researchers tend to share information regularly and formally with 10 to 15 individuals and to engage in knowledge creating activities regularly formally with three to six individuals
- At the same time, researchers report benefiting from informal, serendipitous encounters with individuals when IRCs are embedded in centers with as many as 50 affiliates at one time

## Finally, research suggests that:

- IRCs seeking to integrate the natural and the social sciences and/or the academic and non-academic sectors have often proven more challenging than is perhaps necessary because the social sciences and non-academic sectors have been invited late to the process and misconstrued in the agenda
- IRCs benefit from a well-balanced mix of both senior and junior researchers in that the former tend to bring well-honed theoretical skills and methodological techniques and the latter often offer more broad-minded questions and applications in which to contemplate and cultivate these skills and techniques

## NCHS Responds to Research by:

- Putting forth clear plans and objectives but invites constituent participation and transparency at every level of decision-making
- Recognizing a broad community of constituents without being beholden to any one
- Establishing neutral but shared physical and virtual spaces for different forms of constituent participation
- Creating an administrative and managerial core that can support and enable constituent interaction
- Setting unifying goals and structures that allow for “bottom up” constituent creativity with light “top down” center coordination
- Providing rules and expectations for IRCs but promoting risk and innovation to serve diverse constituent needs and goals
- Seeking to change patterns of inclusion by actively recruiting and building new programs and partnerships

## NCHS Strategies for Supporting IRCs & Synthesis

- Present a new “Open Systems” model of organization that allows for broad participation - from individuals to institutions - in setting the intellectual directions and activities
- Cultivate a new organizational environment that not only rewards but requires stakeholders of different positions, disciplines and sectors to convene and collaborate in ways that are otherwise inhibited by the usual institutional constraints
- Combine the stability and continuity of focused leadership needed for scientific production with the diversity and flexibility of independent research essential for scientific innovation
- Offer state-of-the-art physical facilities with a full suite of information technologies that supports collaborations between the Center’s Working Groups, Postdoctoral and Research Fellows, and Institutional Members and Partners

## NCHS Model for Supporting IRCs & Synthesis:Integrated Research Areas (IRAs)