1. Collaboration Elements by Example
Brenna Flaugher
Astrophysics Dept. Head, Fermilab

2. My experience with big and small collaborations
Moved to Fermilab in 1986 as grad student on CDF – a new huge collaboration for its time ~ 200 people
Up to that time most Fermilab experiments and collaborations were small (<30 people)
For example, my husband’s thesis experiment, a fixed target project at Fermilab, had 3 grad student, 3 postdocs and 3 professors.

3. Collaborations grow and evolve
In 2003 the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration started with 5 institutions, ~ 20 people
Now, 14 years later, we have over 400 scientists, from 25 institutions in 7 countries plus numerous External Collaborator agreements
Funding from DOE, NSF, Universities, non-US Funding agencies (UK, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland)

4. My recent experience with collaborations and their formation
DECam Project Manager
DES Early Career Scientist committee Chair
DES Ombudsman
DES and DESI Speakers boards chair
DESI Project Scientist

5. One example: DES Early Days big picture
John Peoples Director (had been director of Fermilab and SDSS)
John with input from FNAL, NCSA, NOAO management drafted a “Big MOU” that spelled out the roles and responsibilities within the collaboration
Representatives from each Institution or consortia
Project Director and MC are the oversight for the “Collaboration”: science plus technical
Science Committee Chairs were essentially the Spokespeople, developed Science case, setup SWG
Director was primary contact with agencies for the collaboration. As PM I had parallel agency contact for the project
DOE
NSF/NOAO
NSF

6. Organization evolve as they move into operations and science analysis
Exec. Comm. for faster response than MC

7. Power of big collaborations
One of the advantages of a big collaboration is leadership opportunities: Being selected to lead a science working group or give a high profile talk implies the backing and support of a large fraction of the community
It is important to distribute these roles and have processes/policies for selecting people to fill them
Consider having two people in each position and rotate one each year (or longer)
Call for volunteers and self nominations in addition to having a selection committee
Another advantage is the opportunity to work with and become known by a larger fraction of the community (letters of reference etc.)

8. Example of collaboration and project development: DESI
DESI was forged from two competing proposals from two separate competing groups (DES and SDSS/BIGBOSS) Dec. 2012, LBNL Lead lab, Michael Levi Director
Institutional board (IB) created from all interested groups on both collaborations
Interim Steering committee established by Levi to draft Bylaws
Bylaws draft presented to IB in July 2013, accepted in Nov. 2013
Spokespeople (2) selected by a committee (I chaired it) ~ Aug.- Dec
Spokespeople guided formation of the Membership committee, which was appointed by IB in late 2013
Membership policy defined and refined, Bylaws adjusted, iterated 2014 (CD-1 late 2014)
Established the expectations for contributions that would merit inclusion in the collaboration (including plan for ~ annual self -reported effort on project)

9. Example of collaboration and project development: DESI
Institutional membership and contributions reviewed and evaluated
This step involves flexibility and creativity on the part of the collaboration leadership to help each institution figure out how they can contribute in meaningful ways
Needs to be sensitive to differences in funding policies/expectations of various agencies
This is an ongoing process: Need to build a team large enough to carry out the project, do analysis
Institutional contributions (in-kind and cash!) early in a project can make a huge impact in getting it started, flexibility is important
Need to have clear roles and team in place by CD-2 (baseline cost schedule and scope established) (DESI received CD-2 approval at the end of 2015: ~56M$ construction project + ~ 20M$ non-federal funds )
Publication policy drafted, circulated, revised and accepted after project was established: took about a year, all of 2016, about the time of CD-3

10. DESI Experiment Organization

11. DESI Details Directorate Institutional Board Project director
Spokesperson – elected by the institutional board
Executive council – up to 9 chosen by director
Institutional Board
Full member institutions – appoint 1 member to IB
Associate member institutions – appoint 1 IB member if they have more than 3 active participants
Member at large to represent institutions with less than 3 participants

12. LSST Example NSF MREFC and DOE 413 project
LSST Corp. Helped get early funding and organization
NSF builds site and telescope
DOE builds camera (~$160M)
For details on LSST organization See
Separation of project into NSF piece (sites and telescope) and DOE piece (Camera) was a natural and successful division for the project
Science: DOE wanted to make sure Dark Energy Science will get done – established a science collaboration Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) separate from the project. DESC defined its own membership and publication policies and does not have direct input to the project
This separate science collaboration is not the way DOE HEP projects are usually organized. Usually (e.g. DES, DESI, CMS etc.) the collaboration includes both the project team and science working groups and people participate in both the project construction and the science
The point is not which model is better!
The point is that every collaboration and project is different and successful ones respond to and incorporate the needs of the funding sources and the members of the collaboration

14. Main Messages Key points
“Big” projects and collaborations don’t just Happen. They are the result of a lot of work, gradual evolution, based common goals and the participation of the collaboration membership. Communication is critical and it takes time.
Key points
The “collaboration” defines its own structure by establishing by-laws, policies for membership, publications, expectations for contributions of effort and funding etc. and these will reflect the views and culture of the people and groups involved – get involved in parallel sessions this afternoon
Flexibility is critical:
Different organizational structures will be needed at different times (project vs operations)
Will likely need to add collaborators over a multi-year time frame and in response to funding and manpower needs, as the project develops and even during operations
Sources of Funding need to be reflected in the collaboration organizational structure
NSF/DOE/Others expect leadership and control of a significant piece in return for funding
They also expect some sort of overarching coordination between the separate pieces
Big projects take years but postdocs and students have shorter time scales, collaboration policies need to address this: plan for transitioning to different institutions within, or not, the existing collaboration, data rights and recognition within the collaboration etc.

15. Next talks and parallel sessions
Collaboration Governance, Bylaws
Membership, mentoring, collaboration culture
Publications and Speakers policies

16. Estras

17. A few comments about Money
Funding comes in many different ways: be receptive to all of them!
Project Construction funding
DOE R&D and Critical Decision process 413: Usually there is a Single “Lead Lab”
DES – FNAL, DESI-LBL, LSST-SLAC
Project money flows from DOE to that lab and that lab distributes it to collaborators in exchange for work on the project.
NSF-MREFC
There is a PI and lead institution who manages the money and distributes funds via subcontracts to collaborating institutions in exchange for work on the project.
In both cases cost schedule and scope are tracked closely, reported monthly, changes monitored and signed off at increasingly high levels as impact on cost schedule and scope increase
Foreign Partners and In-kind contributions/buy-in
Usually associated with a well defined contribution to the project (e.g building the lenses) in exchange for collaboration membership
Money usually stays in that institution and is managed there but DOE/NSF still monitor progress closely
DOE Research Budget
Funds scientists salaries – DOE expectation is that scientists contribute to projects as well as doing analysis and publishing papers. University proposal success is associated with having well defined critical roles on projects as well as demonstrated scientific leadership
NSF research support – you know better than I do how it works

18. Money flow – A few examples from DES
DOE provided $35M to Fermilab for R&D and construction
Subcontract to OSU for development of online software paid for computing professionals/technicians and hardware. OSU also contributed ~ 2 years of technical support from OSU as part of their “buy-in” to become member of the collaboration
UK (STFC/PPARC) provided funding for the DES Optics: UK leadership led the design/production etc, decided how to spend the money day to day, but progress was tracked in the DOE project
Subcontracts from Fermilab to LBNL for CCD fabrication capitalized on DOE’s and LBNL’s investments in infrastructure and experience at LBNL
Subcontract to Argonne for mechanical engineering and slow controls software capitalized on their expertise

19. DESI Collaboration
DESI Project