Building team bonds outside of the workplace positively influences overall team performance. Studies emphasize that informal social interactions, whether within or outside the office, play a crucial role in fostering team cohesion, which subsequently boosts performance [1, 2]. Spending quality time with colleagues away from the lab is essential for establishing connections, enhancing mutual understanding, facilitating exchanges, and networking. Teams that cultivate a strong “team chemistry” tend to outperform those that do not.
The evenings of congresses are typical occasions, where colleagues can spend quality time together while being away from their homes and private duties. The difficulty is the short time between long conference days and dinner, limited or no budget for activities and extremely busy times before the congress where everybody prepares talks or posters, and nobody has time for organising social events. As professional meeting organisers for large research consortia funded by the European Commission and hence paid by tax payers’ money, we were often challenged with this task: “Organise a nice social event in no time with no budget.” Our solution was to develop ScienceRallyes. They are short, low-cost and fun.
[1 ] Sinz S (2020). The Role of Informal Social Interactions in Predicting Team Cohesion and Performance – Spectrum Research Repository, Concordia University (Montréal, Québec, Canada). Master’s Thesis: pp. 1-57
[2] Johnson SS (2021). The Science of Teamwork. Am J Health Promot. 35(5): pp. 730-732
