Partnerships & Collaborations NASA SMD Education Community Meeting Sept , 2015

What Best Practices Were Noted? Date first, marry later. Make sure expectations are managed on both sides. Must be authentic and mutual benefits. Take genuine team approach. Intentionally listen to each side of the partnership. Desire/ability to meet challenges on the part of all. Shared goals, complimentary needs and strengths important. Promote participants to positions of leadership. Useful to have dedicated champions on each side. Often comes down to individual personalities—need org support and people who will work together. Involve partners from the beginning—that’s a true partnership. Fully involve partners from beginning to end. Availability of partners Is key.

What Lessons Learned Were Shared? Active reflection is needed through the process—helps keep partnership strong and effective. Leadership buy-in is key. Have a clear organizational process and know how to use them. Know your partner! Build understanding of the space in which each operates. Need to learn what the rules are for each of the groups involved— they may not agree. Must be common goals. Make responsibilities and accountabilities clear. Should Identify what’s good for NASA, not just the partners. Takes a long time to build good relationships. Must be consistent and dedicated to gthe long-term partnership (no stop and go).

What TYPES of Impacts Were Noted? Who was reached and how? Leveraging each partner’s assets, resources, channels for greater impact is in itself an impact. Know what type of data partner is willing/able to collect for measuring impacts. Broader understanding of partners results in more productive work. Improved expertise/understanding on both sides of equation. Greater reach within context of audience needs. Broader/deeper reach, sustained interest in partner’s ability to use NASA resources.. Many different scales of impact.

What NASA Resources Were Leveraged? All of them! Data, visual media, scientists, educators. Resources created to help create partnerships (web sites, guides). Sharing experiences of partnership.

Additional Thoughts What constitutes a partnership? If NASA pays the bills, it’s a collaboration, not so much a partnership with both sides contributing resources. Value in both, and impact of many partners can be huge. Important to define partnerships versus collaboration.

Parking Lot Thoughts or Questions Evaluation beyond the numbers—how to do it, how to use technologies to do it, etc. How can we measure true impacts? Figure out communication avenues for sharing resources and experiences in partnering. Share best practices and lessons learned. What constitutes a best practice? How do we define them? Community should outline for NASA where it hits walls, to address navigating the system effectively.