Multidisciplinary: A Revolution in the Creation of Scientific Workplaces

A Revolution in the Creation of Scientific Workplaces

In today’s hypercompetitive research environment, successful organizations know strategic workplace design is no longer a luxury. Historically, providing a private office and a large wet lab was enough to attract great talent and achieve the expected results.

However, today’s researchers are challenging the status quo as they seek creative ways to perform their work. These researchers are looking for workspaces that enable new levels of collaboration, creativity, flexibility, and well-being. Convergent scientific workplace design is based on the widely recognized convergence research model that has been proven to break down traditional barriers of scientific discovery and pave the way toward improved recruitment, retention, productivity and innovation.

WHAT IS CONVERGENCE RESEARCH?

Scientific research is undergoing a transformational change. Highly specialized gene therapies now cure once incurable cancers. Personalized medicine and big data help doctors treat and prevent diseases better than ever before. The ever-advancing technologies behind these breakthroughs are driving a new paradigm of cutting-edge, integrated research across multiple fields and industries that have been historically distinct disciplines. Many have defined this shift as the “convergence revolution”—one that shares methods and ideas from chemists, mathematicians, economists, computer scientists, biologists, physicists, engineers and more to improve the lives of millions—if not billions—of people.

Many initiatives are underway to expand awareness and encourage more scientists to adopt the convergence model of research. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has identified convergence research as one of its “10 Big Ideas” for the agency and is creating a solicitation process to encourage convergence in a subset of its research and center awards. The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable and the National Academy of Sciences have held formal workshops on the topic.

WHY IS WORKPLACE DESIGN IMPORTANT?

In this convergence research model, the scientific workplace environment is more important. With so many disciplines sharing the same space—all with different needs and ways of working—and more remote team members needing means to collaborate, it is important for institutions to understand the role facility design can play in its success or failure. When we talk about optimizing the workplace environment, we are ultimately talking about the researchers within. They are the factors that influence performance, innovation, and retention—all of which are measures of success for a research institution.

The cost of unhappy researchers can be devastating. In a paper titled “Innovation spaces: Workspace planning and innovation in U.S. university research centers,” researchers Umut Toker and Denis Gray cites that over a period of 10 years, operating and maintenance costs of an organization remain around 8 percent, whereas human costs remain around 85-90 percent. It is much more advantageous for institutions to focus on long-term productivity, increased collaboration, and reduction of turnover to reduce cost rather than focusing on the short-term, operational and maintenance of the facility itself.

Sometimes it is seemingly more difficult to demonstrate how workplace planning can influence innovation in an organization. Toker and Gray’s study proved this correlation through data analysis that there is a significant relationship between workspace planning, consultations and innovation process outcomes, citing that “university research centers featuring overall high configurational accessibility, shorter walking distances and intact territories exhibit higher face-to-face consultation rates, consultation network connectivity, and subjective/objective innovation process outcomes.”

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