The participants represented life sciences, earth sciences, economics, social sciences, science administration, and institutional and agency leadership. A summary report, including the results listed above as well as operating definitions, a list of participants, agenda and discussion topics, candid quotes from participants, and an action plan for disseminating the results of the workshop can be found on the USGS Website . A shared vision of the approach to the workshop evolved as individuals came to rely on one another's perspective of the problems we would tackle. Shared responsibility for the products of the workshop evolved as we came to trust each other's contribution during the workshop. This is not news.
Science is a competitive endeavor.
One of the overarching understandings to emerge from the workshop was that leadership is imperative. If we are to expand the culture of science to include the collaboration so essential to integrated scientific approaches, individuals and institutions alike must embrace the leadership imperative. Only leadership can modify funding structures to remove organizational barriers to collaboration. Only leadership, among the entire scientific community, can expand reward systems to include something other than individual achievement. Scientific societies, academic institutions, funding agencies, and federal agencies all share the leadership challenge.