Innovation Labs to Enhance Collaboration

Controlled Evaluation of Innovation Labs for Enhancing Collaboration Among Early Career Scholars in the CTSA Network

Conduct and evaluate the impact of two week-long Innovation Labs on collaboration attitudes and behavior among early career scholars. Applicants to each Innovation Lab will be screened and then randomized to either the Innovation Lab group or a control group.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Collaboration Attitudes and Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Innovation Lab

Detailed Description

Building on the science of team science and preliminary work at the Buffalo and Vanderbilt CTSAs, the investigators worked with industry partner Knowinnovation to implement, assess, and disseminate an innovative and promising method for stimulating and nurturing new transdisciplinary research teams across the CTSA Program consortium: Innovation Labs. The study focused on early career investigators. The study took a translational science approach to identify and test "best practices". To accomplish this, the study critically evaluated the impact of Innovation Labs in two preliminary randomized controlled trials (RCTs). In collaboration with NCATs and broad input from the CTSA network, the investigators developed a clinical and translational research grand challenge focus for each Innovation Lab. A diverse applicant pool of early career investigators invited from every CTSA hub in the consortium was reviewed, and top applicants were randomized to a 5-day residential Innovation Lab or "treatment as usual" control group. Measures of process and outcome were collected from the application phase through 12-month follow-up and aggregated across the two RCTs. Given the preliminary nature of the work and an emerging consensus regarding the science of team science, primary outcomes were measures of the depth and breadth of participants collaborative networks and attitudes towards collaboration, which were predicted to be enhanced in the Innovation Lab group compared to the treatment as usual control group. Initial data on the degree to which Innovation Labs resulted in increased transdisciplinary collaborative output were also examined.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 94
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • Buffalo, New York, United States, 14260
      • University at Buffalo

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Completion of application and baseline assessment.
• Faculty at a NIH CTSA hub institution or regional partner.
• Early stage investigators (NIH-defined as "within 10 years of completing his/her terminal research degree or is within 10 years of completing medical residency (or the equivalent)") who are emerging as independent scholars.
• Ratings of goodness of fit with the topic of the Innovation Lab. Applications were reviewed for the above criteria and ranked by committee according to goodness of fit with the topic of the Innovation Lab, the quality and quantity of academic productivity and collaboration, and contribution to diversity of perspectives among Lab participants (e.g., biomedical and social/psychological, basic and applied). Top-ranked applicants were retained for randomization to the Innovation Lab group or control group.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Innovation Lab Group; Randomized to attend the Innovation Lab	Behavioral: Innovation Lab; An Innovation Lab is a facilitated 5-day residential event designed to create novel, transdisciplinary and potentially transformative research ideas and proposals to address a specific grand challenge. Participants, along with a director, organizers, subject matter guides, and KI facilitators communally explore the problem space, generate a broad range of ideas, and form transdisciplinary teams to pursue research projects.
No Intervention: Control Group; Randomized to NOT attend the Innovation Lab

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
MATRICx Collaboration Benefits/Motivators Scale	Self-report: The Motivation Assessment for Team Readiness, Integration, and Collaboration (MATRICx; Mallinson, Lotrecchiano, et al., 2016) benefits scale includes 17 items that tap into perceived motivators/benefits of collaboration. Each is rated on a 1-4 scale. Scale scores were computed as the mean of all 17 items, for a benefits scale score ranging from 1-4, with higher scores indicating greater collaboration readiness.	15 months
MATRICx Collaboration Barriers/Threats Scale	Self-report: The Motivation Assessment for Team Readiness, Integration, and Collaboration (MATRICx; Mallinson, Lotrecchiano, et al., 2016) Threats Scale includes 31 barriers to -- or threats of -- collaboration. Each is rated on a 1-4 scale. Scale scores were computed as the mean of all 31 items, for a Barriers/Threats scale score ranging from 1-4, with lower scores indicating greater collaboration readiness.	15 months
Transdisciplinary Orientation Scale	Self-report: The Transdisciplinary Orientation scale (TDO; Misra, Stokols, & Cheng, 2015) is a 12-item scale that measures values, attitudes, and beliefs, and conceptual skills and behaviors, that assesses the degree to which participants are oriented towards transdisciplinary collaboration. Items are rated on a five-point scale (1="Strongly Disagree," 5="Strongly Agree"). The total score is the mean of all 12 items, with a resulting 1-5 range, in which higher scores indicate greater transdisciplinary collaboration orientation.	15 months
Collaboration Network Size	Objective number of collaborators from published articles on PubMed	36 Months (18-monts pre- and post-treatment, after excluding articles published within +/-3 months of the Innovation Lab)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Self-Reported Number of Grants Submitted Per Year	Self-Reported Number of Grants Submitted per Year. For the post-treatment period, the number of grants submitted at 6- and 12-M follow-up were summed. To make the pre-treatment period (which covered only 9 months) comparable to the post-treatment period, the number of grants at baseline and EOT were summed, divided by 9, and then multiplied by 12. Participants who did not report the number of grants submitted were coded as zero for the ITT analysis.	21 months (9 months pre-treatment [obtained at baseline and EOT]; 12 months post-treatment [obtained at 6- and 12-month follow-up])
ILab Met Goal - New Collab	The Innovation Lab group was asked to rate the degree to which "The Lab met the goal of forming new transdisciplinary collaborations", answering on a 6-point scale (0 = "Strongly Disagree" to 5 = "Strongly Agree"), with higher scores indicating a beneficial effect of the Innovation Lab.	12 months (End of Treatment [3 months post-baseline], 6-Month Follow-Up [9 months post-baseline], and 12-Month Follow-Up [15 months post-baseline])
ILab Met Goal - Novel Proposals	The Innovation Lab group was asked to rate the degree to which "The Lab met the goal of developing novel grant proposals", answering on a 6-point scale (0 = "Strongly Disagree" to 5 = "Strongly Agree"), with higher scores indicating a beneficial effect of the Innovation Lab.	12 months (End of Treatment [3 months post-baseline], 6-Month Follow-Up [9 months post-baseline], and 12-Month Follow-Up [15 months post-baseline])
ILab - Recommend	The Innovation Lab group was asked to rate the degree to which "I would recommend an Innovation Lab to a colleague", answering on a 6-point scale (0 = "Strongly Disagree" to 5 = "Strongly Agree"), with higher scores indicating a beneficial effect of the Innovation Lab.	12 months (End of Treatment [3 months post-baseline], 6-Month Follow-Up [9 months post-baseline], and 12-Month Follow-Up [15 months post-baseline])
ILab - Positive Impact	The Innovation Lab group was asked to rate the degree to which "My experience in the Innovation Lab will have a positive impact on my work at my home institution", answering on a 6-point scale (0 = "Strongly Disagree" to 5 = "Strongly Agree"), with higher scores indicating a beneficial effect of the Innovation Lab.	12 months (End of Treatment [3 months post-baseline], 6-Month Follow-Up [9 months post-baseline], and 12-Month Follow-Up [15 months post-baseline])

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: State University of New York at Buffalo
• Collaborators: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Hawk LW Jr, Murphy TF, Hartmann KE, Burnett A, Maguin E. A randomized controlled trial of a team science intervention to enhance collaboration readiness and behavior among early career scholars in the Clinical and Translational Science Award network. J Clin Transl Sci. 2023 Dec 14;8(1):e6. doi: 10.1017/cts.2023.692. eCollection 2024.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 3, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 12, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): June 25, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 19, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 24, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): May 27, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 27, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 5, 2026
• Last Verified: March 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavior
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00001360

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No