Five Tips to Build a Strong Research Team

Building a research team can seem like a daunting task. Bringing a group of people together who may not have collaborated before and who often represent different disciplines is a challenge that carries no assurance of success. However, with patience, proper preparation, and detailed expectations, a research team can emerge that will be productive for years.

“There’s not a magic recipe” for a successful research team, says Paul Whitney, associate vice president for international programs and director of the Health Equity Research Center at Washington State University. “But there are some common factors present in the species that thrive. If you have vegetable seeds to grow, you don’t just go out and throw them on bare ground. You prepare the bed. That’s how I think of building teams.”

Determining those common factors and preparing for healthy growth doesn’t just happen. International educators with deep experience in team building identified five factors to keep in mind to put together a successful research team. 

Find the right mix of talent. 

“The most important thing for a really interdisciplinary team is that the people who come to the table have complementary skills around a similar talent,” says Whitney. “That really is the key to a research team taking off.” 

While personalities make a difference, Whitney says that those dynamics are not as big a deal as many people think. “There are certainly people who play well with others and others who don’t,” he says. “I don’t think that accounts as much as people