# Enabling High-Impact Collaborative Clinical and Translational Research through Effective Information Management: A Prototype Intervention

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2024 · $351,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
An interdisciplinary, team science approach is required to address our most complex scientific questions. Yet
team science can be challenging, as collaboration requires additional coordination and communication to
succeed and few researchers are trained in strategies to support collaborative work. Previous research has
identified practices and activities of effective collaborative science teams, including collaboration planning,
authorship agreements, and clear roles and responsibilities. Central to these activities is effective, efficient
management of information, defined here as the human-generated digital objects of the team's work to achieve
its scientific goals. Translational Teams (TTs), those conducting Clinical and Translational Research (CTR),
are an ideal population in which to investigate questions of team science and information management. TTs
are a hybrid of academic research and product development teams, with a goal of creating and advancing a
discovery from the bench to the clinic to the community. To accomplish this, TTs work across disciplines and
institutions, potentially over long periods of time, engaging with a wide variety of information to generate new
biomedical knowledge. Currently, we know little about the ways in which TTs engage with information across
the translational spectrum. Previous research has shown that TTs use a constellation of information strategies,
processes, and tools simultaneously and, often, haphazardly, to manage the information of CTR. This
haphazard approach to information management leads to lost or misplaced information, inaccurate records,
and delays in efforts to improve health. Poorly documented studies can jeopardize study participants when key
information is not tracked and communicated. This gap in TTs' information management represents an
opportunity to improve how TTs conduct research, increase rigor and reproducibility, and expedite
implementation of CTR. The long-term goal of this research is to improve the capacity of TTs for doing high-
impact team science by improving their ability to manage their projects' information. Our mixed methods
project will complete the following aims. Aim 1: Develop a conceptual framework describing the impact of TT
information behaviors on the conduct of CTR. We will identify and catalog the information involved in CTR and
the strategies, tools and processes TTs use to engage with information, then develop a conceptual framework
that maps the information behaviors that facilitate or impede the conduct of high-impact collaborative CTR. Aim
2: Prototype and test an educational module to train and coach TTs in developing and implementing team- and
individual-level information management strategies adapted to the team's collaboration context. We will create
and test a feasible, usable intervention to help TTs improve their information management practices. The
expected outcome is an intervention to facilitate improved conduct of team-based ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11118194
- **Project number:** 7R01LM014237-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Betsy Ann Rolland
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $351,000
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2023-08-04 → 2027-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11118194

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11118194, Enabling High-Impact Collaborative Clinical and Translational Research through Effective Information Management: A Prototype Intervention (7R01LM014237-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11118194. Licensed CC0.

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