The attention of the right expert at the right time is often the single most valuable resource one can have in creative problem solving… it’s this ability to restructure expert attention that is at the heart of how online tools amplify collective intelligence…. [and] help participants find tasks where they have the greatest comparative advantage.

Developing a workspace that promotes authentic collaboration requires assembling infrastructure, expert facilitation, and rewards for more reliable and valuable outcomes. In recent years, Rapid Science assisted in strategizing and implementing, with consulting partner Stratos (Strategies for Open Science), a “Hub” for conducting open research by 200+ grantees of Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) – a newly established initiative dedicated to accelerating the pace of discovery in basic biology through transparency and open practices. This work led to the founding of Incentivizing Collaborative & Open Research (ICOR), along with co-founders Stratos and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which is dedicated to formulating and implementing practical ideas that will engender a research culture grounded in openness and trust.

In earlier work, the Sarcoma Central pilot demonstrated below involved convening clinical researchers to discuss outcomes of clinical trials and insights from their own practices. They sought to better understand the biology and efficacy of experimental and approved therapies, for which there is a paucity of data in this rare disease.

Image: Visualizing Scientific Collaboration / Andy Lamb

Quote: Michael Nielsen, “Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science,” Princeton Univ. Press