This project is a multi-methodological evaluation of a large NSF-funded project: Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub (Cascadia CoPes hub).  The Hub is a major 5 year $20M project that will inform and enable integrated hazard assessment, mitigation, and adaptation through targeted scientific advancement and modeling co-produced in sustained collaboration with coastal communities in the Pacific Northwest. The Hub project work involves a robust co-production process including universities, government, and tribal and community organizations. CORD, in collaboration with Eric Welch (C-STEPS, ASU) is leading the external evaluation of the Hub. Our evaluation provides ongoing formative feedback to the Hub team, and an annual assessment of project activities and developments.  Evaluation data are based on annual surveys, social network analysis, interviews and observation, and analysis of team production.

Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) programs across the nation struggle with retention of students, which stems from a number of issues. CORD is the external evaluator for the Georgia Tech NSF RED grant (“Adapting and Implementing Interactive Problem-Driven Learning, Professional and Computational Skills Development for Early and Vertically-Integrated Engagement”). The purpose of the project is to develop an effective and scalable model to revolutionize CEE education through curricular and other changes. The evaluation supports the project through an examination of the CEE culture and overall environment, student experiences, including transfers in and out of CEE.  

This project addresses the topic of global social innovation in science capacity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic massively disrupted science worldwide, and the purpose of this project is to understand how teams have innovated to minimize these effects on their research activities. We focus on three intertwining features of the social dynamics of international collaborative teams: Social innovation, Adaptation and Resilience, and Learning and Transferability. Social innovation refers to new and different ways of modifying individual and group behavior within the context of team science. The project involves a series of case studies focused around distinct internationally collaborative teams funded through the US NSF or the European Commission. We focus on teams that are new emergent collaborations that establish norms for interaction during the pandemic but also adaptive collaborations that adjust to the barriers and constraints of the pandemic. We use a novel methodological approach to identifying teams using advanced computing techniques in a new and robust bibliometric dataset, complemented by other snowball sampling techniques. The project will conclude with an international workshop to share and disseminate findings that further international collaboration.