Keywords: team science, promotion, collaborative data scientists,
Modern biomedical research is complex, often requiring a collaboration of experts across disciplines. Known as team science, such approaches have great need for data scientists and present many advantages. Clinical and translational investigators benefit from invested collaborators who can assume principal responsibility for data-related activities, while the data scientist can build a career developing relevant tools. Participation in team science, however, can pose challenges. One is the ability to evaluate the data scientist’s scholarly contributions, necessary for promotion. Only a minority of academic institutions have attempted to address this. In order for team science to thrive on academic campuses, leaders of institutions need to hire data science faculty to conduct team science, with novel systems in place that incentivize engagement in team science and that allow for appropriate evaluation of performance. Without such systems, the ability to conduct team science will be compromised. Fostering team science on campuses by establishing such systems will benefit not only clinical, translational and data scientists, but also the larger academic institution.