CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing Scientific Teams: Models and Practices for Enhanced CollaborationView all 9 articles
Organizational Change Readiness for Team Science: A Pathway Framework for Team Science Success
Provisionally accepted
- 1George Washington University, Washington, D.C., United States
- 2Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, United States
- 3Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, Rochester, United States
- 4University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Since the early 21st century, team science has significantly influenced emerging perspectives, processes, and expectations across various industries, human development, and scholarly activities. Research over the past 25 years—drawing on psychology, management, social psychology, anthropology, organizational sciences, and sociology—has shaped best practices and redefined how academics and practitioners approach collaborative work. Despite substantial progress in understanding team dynamics, a critical gap remains: the absence of a clearly defined professional pathway for team scientists and science workers. Specifically, there is a lack of a secure, structured pipeline that supports training, recognition, and career advancement in team science roles. This paper addresses the limited presence of systematic organizational strategies that help science workers from the early stages of their careers through long-term professional growth. As higher education confronts a shifting paradigm, institutions must now prepare students not only as disciplinary experts but also as collaborators equipped to thrive in a cross-disciplinary, problem-solving environment that embraces the workforce competencies employers seek. We examine the organizational requirements and challenges necessary to ensure success in science careers, emphasizing developmental training, robust mentorship, the professionalization and institutionalization of team structures, and sustaining collaboration. These elements are essential for preparing a workforce that is capable, resilient, and ready for the demands of future collaborative scientific endeavors.
Keywords: mentoring, Organizations, readiness, sustainability, teams, training
Received: 06 Dec 2025; Accepted: 12 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Lotrecchiano, DiazGranados, VITALE and BROWN-HUNTT. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gaetano Romano Lotrecchiano
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.