How the benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by proven strategies.
The benefits of research collaboration can enhanced by proven strategies
To collaborate or not to collaborate?
When it comes down to it, deciding on whether or not to invest effort in a collaboration is a risk/benefit calculation.
The default is to do as much as you can to minimize the risk.
There is however only so much you can do to mitigate risk. What about increasing the benefits?
Andrea Aguilar wrote an article in Nature Index (1) listing out five tips to collaborate more effectively as a researcher:
Be strategic - don’t overcommit.
Create a collaboration agreement.
Communicate your failures, not just your success.
Embrace all types of outputs, not just papers.
Learn what it takes to be a good team player.
Having spent the last 17 years designing and guiding consortium projects, I definitely agree with all of her tips.
One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was the 25 ways benefits of collaboration that researchers cannot afford to ignore. However, that post did not include much about how to enhance the benefits of collaboration.
In this article, I will go through each of Aguilar’s five tips and put them in the context of strategies to enhance the benefits of collaboration.
I will point out how to do this as a researcher and also as an organization that supports research such as medical nonprofits (disease foundation, professional society, patient organization).
At the end of this article, you will have actionable insights on how the benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by focusing on the benefits of collaboration.
Benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by being strategic.
Aguilar admonishes researchers not to over commit.
It is, however, also important not to under commit.
You need to invest in the collaboration for the sake of the collaboration, not just for your own needs. This will deliver much more in long term.
There is research that supports that the usefulness and satisfaction that comes out of a collaboration is increased by the amount of ‘goalless’ interaction that takes place (2).
In other words, helping each other out for the sake of being helpful.
This builds up trust.
Trust then in turn accelerates the process of collaboration. The more trust you have, the more easy it is to be aligned.
Alignment is how resources get combined.
Strategy is also about coming together and building a shared vision. Together you have more power to make those shared visions come true.
So, to be more effective, commit to building a strategy together.
As a researcher: Invest time and effort in helping others in your collaboration even if it has nothing to do with your research.
I wrote an article for early career researchers and showed how collaboration is a mindset (3).
It is also important as a researcher to develop a strategy. Even if it is a simple one that is just a one-page text outlining your vision, mission, purpose, values, and a set of strategic priorities.
With a strategy in hand, it is much easier to know how you can collaborate with others. Indeed, as Aguilar points out, it's about avoiding over-commitment but it also a way to figure out how to make 1+1 = 3 (1).
As an organization that supports research: The process of strategic planning is a tool for leadership.
By supporting and calling for the development of strategic plans with the involvement of different types of stakeholders, you can create alignment and synergies.
Benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by investing effort in collaboration agreements
Aguilar makes the point that collaboration agreements are about transparency and completing one early on can be very helpful for building up trust (1).
I would go further and even say a collaboration agreement is also a project plan. In fact, without a project plan, a collaboration agreement is nearly meaningless.
A project plan helps to define what you are going to produce.
What you are going to produce defines what intellectual property there will be in the project.
Being clear about the intellectual property up front allows you to decide who owns what.
Don't be lured by those who advise you to get the collaboration agreement terms general.
Those kinds of agreements are not very helpful and in fact they could damage the long-term viability of the collaboration.
Relationships can deteriorate when collaborators realize that the vague collaboration terms they assumed were settled require last-minute discussions about specific outputs, particularly after intellectual property has already been created.
As a researcher: View the collaboration agreement as you do the project plan. A collaboration agreement is not something to entirely outsource to your grants and contracts office or your legal department.
Get involved in the process and do the work of defining what you will produce so that you can agree up front who owns the intellectual property for the various outputs you will create.
As an organization that supports research: Enshrine the principles of collaboration in the collaboration agreement. Medical research nonprofits are in a powerful position to advocate for and drive collaboration.
Only support research that is clearly defined a priori and specific about the outputs.
Also insist that your collaboration agreement is specific.
Benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by communicating failures
Aguilar rightfully points out that communicating delays or problems is not ‘admitting failure’ (1).
"Admitting failure" and opening about problems is a great opportunity to tap into the group genius present in your collaboration.
If it is a small-scale collaboration, the group genius or collective intelligence effect will be smaller but still worthwhile.
When you expose problems to a diverse group of thinkers in a larger collaboration, you can uncover solutions to your problems that accelerate your project in ways you never dreamed were possible.
Aguilar goes on to quote Mark Hahnel: “If you think you are over-communicating, you’re not,” says Hahnel. “Communication is only ever a good thing [in a collaboration]. (1)”
This is a core principle of collaboration. Seize upon every opportunity to communicate.
There is a hierarchy of collaboration:
Face to face > online video conference >than a phone call > an online forum > email.
You can never go wrong kicking your communication up to a higher level on this scheme.
As a researcher: Expose your challenges and problems to your collaborators. Admit failure and use the collective intelligence of the group to solve your problems.
Also make going up the hierarchy of communication your default when there is a problem.
As an organization that supports research: Demand that your research funds are also being used to foster communication amongst researchers and between stakeholders.
A facilitator can be a great communication multiplier. Engaging a strategic planning consultant who is also a facilitator can be a great way to avoid groupthink and confirmation bias while at the same time increasing the alignment of your consortium and community.
Benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by embracing all outputs.
With this tip, the point is made that the most common outputs are papers and presentations (1).
I would argue that the most important outputs of collaborative efforts are not papers or presentations.
The most important outputs are less common outputs such as datasets, shared protocols, position statements, standards etc. Many of these types of inputs cannot be easily produced outside of a collaboration.
A key approach to collaboration is to always be thinking about how you can increase the value and impact of your research.
Typically outputs that increase the value of your research also increase the value of the research of others as well.
This is what I think of as the X or exponential factor:
As a researcher: Ask yourself: What can we do to increase the value of our research and the research of others? Invest time and effort in developing and delivering outputs beyond publications.
For example, taking the time to structure a dataset with a proper data dictionary and a system that allows for data sharing will increase the effectiveness of your collaboration many fold.
As an organization that supports research: Unless you have billions to spend, your best chance for meaningful impact is to support outputs that multiply value.
Outputs that multiply value are ultimately the fastest route to impact. They are the most direct path to breakthroughs that transform the lives of individuals who are suffering from disease.
For example, the U-BIOPRED dataset 10 years on, is still delivering value (4).
Benefits of a research collaboration can be enhanced by being good team players
“One of the great strengths of collaborative research is the innovation that comes from bringing together researchers of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Sometimes it can seem hard to adapt to different ways of thinking and working, but being flexible and open to new ideas will pay dividends.”
The use of the term innovation here is interesting in that it is used by Aguilar as a synonym of novelty.
But collaboration is also key for innovation in the sense of innovation being about bringing new ideas into widespread use. In other words, innovation can also mean the process of translating research findings into clinical impact.
In fact, in the medical field it is hard to think of any innovation in this latter sense of the term that happens without collaboration.
Another way to be a good team player is to orient your research toward impact. If you know the steps to achieving a meaningful change or impact, your impact pathway, your research becomes highly relevant to all stakeholders and thereby creates opportunities for collaboration.
As a researcher: Create an impact pathway for all of your research and always look for opportunities to work with others to advance the outcomes on that pathway.
As an organization that supports research: Make impact pathways part of your research strategy and insist that all of the research you fund contributes to that pathway.
Fund different types of efforts along the pathway.
The researchers you fund will then have more motivation to form more collaborations with different types of stakeholders.
Exponentially favorable risk/benefit calculus.
By implementing the strategies and principles outlined in this article, researchers and organizations can cultivate a culture of collaboration.
More importantly, they can mold the risk/benefit calculus for collaboration to one that is exponentially favorable.
Effective collaboration is one of the most satisfying and inspiring aspects of medical research.
Collaboration can lead to results you never thought possible.
It also creates many opportunities, so that even when you pause to marvel at what you have achieved together you still have a future full of even more exciting possibilities.
Are you ready to get more out of your research collaborations?
At BioSci Consulting we specialize in enhancing the benefits of collaboration. From strategic planning, to project and funding proposal development and meaningful stakeholder involvement we provide solutions to medical nonprofits and researchers. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you leverage collaboration.
References
How to collaborate more effectively: 5 tips for researchers. Andrea Aguilar, Nature Index, January 2020 https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/how-to-collaborate-more-effectively-five-tips-for-researchers-science
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. "Collaborative advantage." Harvard business review 72.4 (1994): 96-108.
Wagers, S. S. (2022). The early career researcher collaboration mindset. Breathe, 18(2).
Wagers, S., & Adcock, I. (2019). The lessons from U-BIOPRED. Severe asthma. ERS Monograph, 152-166.
One of the biggest challenges we face as human beings is initiating the creative process. We fear not knowing where to start. We imagine ourselves becoming lost, investing a lot of effort and having nothing to show for it.
This starting resistance is made manyfold worse when we are engaged in anything collaborative. We fear that what we produce has to be near perfect before anyone sees it.
This is the problem we face when endeavouring to collaboratively create a funding proposal for a consortium project. Sometimes we have to count on up to 15 or more people getting over their start-up anxiety.