A Workshop on How to Create Lasting Relationships Among Computer Scientists and Social Scientists: What Works and What Doesn't

George Washington University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past three years, the SaTC program has funded about 50 research projects bringing together social scientists and computer scientists in new collaborations, where the two scientists had not previously performed research together. These projects were invited through a series of NSF Dear Colleague Letters. This workshop brings together researchers from these projects, for a 1.5 day workshop (to be scheduled in early calendar 2016 in the Washington DC area) that will include a mixture of individual presentations and group discussions. The workshop participants will explores measures of success and challenges in doing these projects like institutional barriers for interdisciplinary collaboration, barriers for publication, and difficulty in attracting and retaining students. The participants will also identify areas where further collaborations would be worthwhile, and barriers to submitting and being funded via traditional proposals/solicitations. The outcomes will be documented in a public written report that defines lessons learned from mixing the disciplines, and suggestions for future efforts to encourage such cross-disciplinary collaboration.