Engaging the Practitioner: “But Wait, That’s Not All!"- Collaborations with Practitioners and Extending the Reasons You Started Doing Research in the First Place

For many researchers and practitioners, working individually versus working as part of teams is a voluntary act. Although the broader social and cultural context is shifting in ways more amenable to team science approaches (Stokols et al. Am J Prev Med 35:S96-115, 2008), the nature of the research environment is still that there is still an inherent element of individual decision-making and individual choice in whether and how one involves oneself in team science. Given this, encouraging researchers to become involved in team science approaches will require not only selling its value for the field (a point made in several of the other chapters in this book) but also making clear why team science can be tremendously advantageous for the individual researcher or practitioner. This chapter provides a framework for thinking about motivations for individuals to engage in team science and ways in which researchers interested in team science collaborations can move forward with developing collaborations in ways that satisfy those motivations.