Key Areas Of The Brehm Coalition
Research
The Brehm Coalition’s research plan focuses on novel, multi-year scientific goals that are broken down into smaller collaborative projects distributed among the principal investigators and their colleagues. In many cases the principal investigators are dependent upon each other owing to the manner in which they share the research effort and results.
Community Technology
Tight collaboration requires frequent discussion and the sharing of the science. The Brehm Coalition holds monthly science review meetings, not via the frequent use of airline terminals, but through the frequent use of teleconferencing, operating from their own offices. They augment their monthly science exchanges with annual face-to-face conferences.
Analysis
The Brehm Coalition employs the discipline of high-level systems analysis to plan their work and to understand the enterprise of which the research effort is a part. This is very much a discovery process in its own right, as it reveals in specific terms the existing barriers to science and the development of therapies, thereby allowing the development of means to overcome or mitigate those barriers.
Infrastructure
A robust and diverse infrastructure supports the Brehm Coalition’s work with analysis, information science, and core capabilities - one that combines the strengths of the several institutions.
Guiding Principles
The Brehm Coalition believes in a simple approach to guide their research and collaboration:
- Self-organizing style not compromised by a rigid management approach imposed by others.
- Unprecedented collaboration facilitated by frequent video conferences involving all Coalition members.
- Respect for and trust in each other.
- Dependence on each other for results.
- Cooperation on, and even performance of, one another's experiments.
- Sharing of institutional cores and other resources.
- Enjoying each others' company - i.e., "fun to work with."