Hello!
Science brings together researchers from around the globe with a solid drive to advance the frontiers of knowledge. In my experience in our group, many research questions are intrinsically interdisciplinary, requiring teams with several backgrounds to tackle the challenges they pose fully. From a funding perspective, there have also been incentives for collaborative research, providing specialised grants for established scientists to pursue ambitious projects targeting such questions by uniting the capabilities and technologies of two or three research groups. Our group has recently been awarded such a grant in cooperation with two research institutes in Switzerland, and I am also supporting the project it entails. Therefore, in this post, I would like to share some learnings I have collected about navigating and managing this complex project.
1. Balancing scientific interests
Balancing scientific interests
First, it is essential to realise that each research group has a core focus, and the integration of their knowledge will (hopefully) converge on a novel approach explored in the project. Inevitably, each participant will naturally have their own established research interests and scientific questions driving their work. Hence, a critical initial step in preparation meetings was communicating what each group aims to achieve from their involvement to ensure the collective objectives are aligned. Although there was a project proposal in the grant application describing in detail the concepts of the research, it was only through technical discussions with all members that a clear roadmap became apparent. While additional risks and bottlenecks were identified, the collective knowledge and problem-solving strategies helped to identify solutions that would still enable progress in the right direction.
Additionally, by having recurrent meetings where scientific updates are shared among participants, collaborators can follow the progress of the work and step in when they have resources or ideas to offer. An episode in a previous meeting was an inspiring example of cross-pollination in research that solidified the value of the collaborative nature of the project. Briefly, a colleague presented how a biomaterial was implanted in vivo as granular spheres and how it was imaged regularly, showing its integration with the surrounding bone materials. A repeated challenge was to identify the evolution of these granules, which would merge and be incorporated at different speeds. Fortunately, previous work in our group in the field of fracture healing had dealt with a very similar challenge, where fracture fragments also interact in similar conditions to restore the original shape of the bone. Hence, this analysis pipeline could be a suitable approach to adapt to the biomaterials field in this new application.
Defining roles and tasks
Following the last point, defining who is responsible for each part of the project is essential. While a collaboration aims to promote the use of shared resources, it does not imply that each group should necessarily give away ownership of key technologies they have developed over time. Furthermore, as most of the practical research tasks are being carried out by doctoral students (and post-docs), there is an additional interest in converting research outcomes into scientific papers, which are an essential element for the completion of the degree. For this reason, intellectual contributions should also be discussed and agreed upon upfront, as these will define the basis for authorship orders of such articles.
Therefore, all participants must communicate, preferably at an early stage, which tasks they can complete and establish partnerships based on what each player can provide to another. This collaborative setup should allow each element to develop their skills in their field while delivering quality results to colleagues. Again, in the case of unexpected bottlenecks, alternative paths identified at the beginning can be immediately deployed to avoid such project dependencies affecting the research project of another student. At the same time, implementing such a parallelisation strategy is critical to achieving all milestones of the project within the allocated duration of the grant.
Expand research network
Finally, another important aspect of collaborative research is the opportunity to expand our network, especially for early-stage researchers. During doctoral studies, many students spend most of their time immersed in their projects and typically have a narrow focus on conferences and journals directly related to their topic. Often, these show their ability to produce high-quality work accepted by their direct research community. While this targeted approach is entirely reasonable, collaborative projects provide the chance to attend new conferences and interact with researchers from other domains. This exposure can broaden perspectives and introduce PhDs to meetings and journals they may not have considered relevant for their work. These networking activities can help early career researchers identify potential future collaborations, mentors, or career pathways outside their main research topic.
Additionally, in our project, it has also enabled the chance to visit other research labs for our project update meetings. While so far, these typically last a single day, it has been discussed that some of the work can evolve to a research stay which, in the context of this collaborative work, is much easier to establish than usual (where applications to each professor are required to secure the resources for the visiting student). Therefore, focusing again on early-stage researchers, the opportunity to experience other research environments during their doctoral studies is extremely valuable.
Conclusion
Collaborative projects can be highly ambitious and require consistent and clear communication to successfully deliver results on the agreed milestones. While my original project was devised as an interdisciplinary project within our group, I am excited to continue this experience that brings together three research groups towards novel clinically relevant biomaterials for bone. Please feel free to share your thoughts on collaborative research!
Please feel free to share your thoughts on collaborative research!
Have a great day!