A New Role Joins ESIIL Working Groups
Susan Sullivan (Community Care Lead) and Kayleigh Ward (Team Science postdoc) hosted ESIIL’s first Collaboration Lead training in June with a fantastic group of people from ESIIL’s third cohort of working groups.
Why Collaboration Leads? ESIIL has used the “train-the-trainer” model with technical leads in each working group. These technical leads are trained by the ESIIL team and serve as the point person for the technical needs of the group and as a liaison with the ESIIL team. We know that innovative science happens when broad perspectives and areas of expertise are brought together to solve complex environmental issues. We’ve provided team science resources and consultations with our working groups to lower barriers to collaboration, but we decided to take this a step further and train a collaboration lead within each working group.
We weren’t sure how the working groups would respond, but our teams expressed that they need and value this expertise and role.
Each working group named a Collaboration Lead for the group and many groups had more than one volunteer. The collaboration leads range from junior to senior members, including postdocs, junior and senior faculty, and PIs. During the collaboration lead training, the leads got to know one another before jumping into the topics of the day. They discussed how to manage and build relationships before addressing polarizing topics and what to do when someone in the group has a “hard no” on a topic. Navigating the use of AI and developing norms around AI use within working groups was also a hot topic. Kayleigh and Susan developed an AI Assistance Scoreboard to help teams navigate the creation of team AI use norms. The leads had great feedback that is getting incorporated into its next iteration.
ESIIL will continue to work with the Collaboration Leads to develop timely resources to help them support their groups. They are starting a Slack channel to communicate with each other and are making plans for another meeting - either social or around navigating sticky topics.
The slides and resources from the Collaboration Lead training are available here:
Collaboration Lead Training Slides