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Higashi RT, Cotner BA, Smith-Morris C, Quirk L, Dahlberg B. The Anthropologist's Toolkit: A Dialogue About Skills and Tools in Team Science Settings. Practicing Anthropology. 2025 Sep 18; https://doi.org/10.1080/08884552.2025.2551587.
Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects. Achieving success in team science requires deliberate and expert coordination of knowledge, communication, and data in ways that are not commonly learned by anthropologists during their training. Unlike solo anthropologists, team scientists in Schools of Medicine and Public Health, interdisciplinary healthcare, and research settings must collaborate with colleagues who have varying levels of qualitative expertise. To do this, data must be structured in a way that can be shared through rapid communication, in easily digestible formats, and accessible to retrospective review over time. Team scientists who rely on grant funding must be skilled at finding and negotiating roles and products with high-quality partners. The authors of this piece have extensive experience as successful team scientists who have honed their skills in various settings. Over the years, we have crystallized this practical knowledge into a toolkit: taking repeated conversations, negotiations, and team practices and then building the most effective ones into adaptable templates, strategies, and concrete tools to facilitate effective team science collaborations. The purpose of this paper is to offer guidance and equip anthropologists working in team science settings with the skills and tools needed to navigate relationships and research endeavors with investigators less familiar with qualitative science.
