Despite the central importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration in the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) network and the implementation of various programs designed to enhance collaboration, rigorous evidence for the efficacy of these approaches is lacking. We conducted a novel randomized controlled trial (RCT; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05395286) of a promising approach to enhance collaboration readiness and behavior among 95 early career scholars from throughout the CTSA network.

Participants were randomly assigned (within two cohorts) to participate in an Innovation Lab, a week-long immersive collaboration experience, or to a treatment-as-usual control group. Primary outcomes were change in metrics of self-reported collaboration readiness (through 12-month follow-up) and objective collaboration network size from bibliometrics (through 21 months); secondary outcomes included self-reported number of grants submitted and, among Innovation Lab participants only, reactions to the Lab experience (through 12 months).

Short-term reactions from Innovation Lab participants were quite positive, and controlled evidence for a beneficial impact of Innovation Labs over the control condition was observed in the self-reported number of grant proposals in the intent-to-treat sample. Primary measures of collaboration readiness were near ceiling in both groups, limiting the ability to detect enhancement. Collaboration network size increased over time to a comparable degree in both groups.

The findings highlight the need for systematic intervention development research to identify efficacious strategies that can be implemented throughout the CTSA network to better support the goal of enhanced cross-disciplinary collaboration.