Leveraging the Science of Team Science to Strengthen Program Evaluation
Program evaluators often work in multidisciplinary, collaborative environments with colleagues and clients to asses program implementation and outcomes. The recently published Science and Practice of Team Science Consensus Report offers lessons directly applicable to evaluation practice. The publication updates the 2015 National Academies of Science report and summarizes recent information about practices that enhance team dynamics and productivity. The report provides insights into how teams function and how they can be supported to improve collaboration, productivity, and outcomes.
What is Team Science?
Team science refers to collaborative research carried out by groups that span multiple disciplines, institutions, or sectors. The report synthesizes research on what makes such collaborations effective, and offers guidance for how to support high-performing teams. For evaluators, especially those working in transdisciplinary or multi-stakeholder settings, these findings are particularly relevant.
Key Takeaways for Program Evaluators
1. Collaboration is a skill that can be developed.
The report emphasizes that successful team science doesn’t just happen. Successful team science depends on intentional design, shared goals, and cultivating collaborative competencies. For evaluators, this identifies the importance of assessing and attending to processes that support collaboration among team members and stakeholders.
2. Shared mental models enhance effectiveness.
Teams that explicitly align around goals, terminology, methods, and roles are more effective. In program evaluation, developing a shared understanding with clients and collaborators around evaluation questions, success indicators, and intended use can significantly improve utility and impact of findings.
3. Evaluation supports continuous learning in team science.
The report points to the value of formative assessment and feedback loops in team science. This aligns closely with developmental and utilization-focused evaluation approaches, where the evaluator acts as a learning partner to help teams reflect, adapt, and improve in real time.
5. Institutional context matters.
Organizational support, leadership, and reward structures influence team science success. Evaluators can examine how context enables or hinders collaboration and innovation, and offer recommendations to strengthen organizational capacity.
Why This Matters
Program evaluation in complex settings mirrors the dynamics of team science: multiple stakeholders, diverse expertise, and a need for coordinated effort. Applying the principles from the Science and Practice of Team Science report can help evaluators:
- Design better evaluation frameworks for collaborative initiatives
- Assess teamwork as an important component of program implementation
- Provide actionable insights to improve not just programs, but the teams behind them
- Improve the efforts of their own evaluation teams to plan and implement effective evaluation studies
Lessons from team science can enhance our ability to implement participatory and systems-oriented approaches to support learning, program improvement, and impact of evaluation efforts.
National Research Council. (2015). Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/19007