What is collaboration?
- Multiple people working on the same problem and exchanging ideas
- People pooling expertise, time and resources to achieve a common goal
For example:
- Two researchers jointly writing a paper
- Several labs working on a problem together
- Multi-site clinical studies in several countries
Collaboration can be organised at different levels:
- Individuals
- Departments
- Institutions
- Countries
Why collaborate?
Sharing and discussing different perspectives and ideas leads to solutions more rapidly
Large undertakings require a joint effort: Many hands make light work
Teams with the best mix of competences
Access to specific material, equipment or know-how
Some projects need geographic distribution or capacity of parallel sites
Collaborations publish more and get more citations
Working together can be more motivating than solitary work
Collaboration is based on agreement
Agreement is needed on:
- Goals
- Participants, their roles and responsibilities
- Timing and deadlines
- Commitment of time and resources
- Expectations on quality
- Data sharing, ownership, access
- Intellectual property rights
- Publication of results and authorships
Collaboration is based on agreement
Agreement is needed on:
- Goals
- Participants, their roles and responsibilities
- Timing and deadlines
- Commitment of time and resources
- Expectations on quality
- Data sharing, ownership, access
- Intellectual property rights
- Publication of results and authorships
==> How to communicate about these issues
Collaboration happens at different places in the research workflow
Collaboration happens at different places in the research workflow
Where in this research workflow can collaborative research methods be relevant?
Exercise: giving clear instructions
Example: The first computationally reproducible manuscript
Source from https://elifesciences.org/articles/30274