The Challenges of Distributed Scientific Collaboration among Top Scientists - A Case Study

摘要

Because of the increasing complexity of research work, distributed scientific collaboration mediated by information technology has become increasingly popular in biomedical science. Such kind of distributed collaboration holds great promises of advancing science by offering opportunities for experts to collaborate across distance. However, biomedical researchers have been working under a "cottage industry" mechanism in which individual investigators direct postdoctoral fellows and graduate students pursuing independent research projects. This kind of organization of science creates barriers to the collaborative research model. This paper presents success factors and challenges of project management of the biomedical research consortium studied. Primary project management challenges include: to preserve trust and momentum for informal interactions among scientists and maintain effective enforcement mechanism at the same time; to establish an enforcement mechanism among pre-established scientists at the same reputation levels.