The value of collaboration in research (Arts and Humanities)

1. The value of collaboration in research (Arts and Humanities) Dr Peter Kahn Educational Development Division

2. A ‘research collaboratory’

3. A trans-disciplinary research programme funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

4. Facebook group - Columbia University Oral History Research Office

5. The growth of collaboration as see through the Science Citation Index, from Katz and Hicks (1995)

6. Role profile - Research Grade 9 • Lead and develop external networks for example with other active researchers and leading thinkers in the field. • Develop links with external contacts such as other educational and research bodies, employers, professional bodies and other providers of funding and research initiatives to foster collaboration and generate income. • Lead teams within areas of responsibility. • Ensure that teams within the department work together. • Act to resolve conflicts within and between teams.

7. Paul Erdős

8. Context • Research involves work at the boundaries of what is possible. • Troublesome activity • initially alien, counter-intuitive and hard to master. • Emergent working • outputs cannot be fully specified at the outset; scope for new direction or multiple products to emerge.

9. What is collaboration? • … two or more parties from potentially disparate settings working together to achieve a common (academic) goal • (adapted from Walsh and Kahn, 2009)

10. Personal engagement Professional dialogues Shared practice Academic goals Social vehicles A model for collaborative working in higher education

11. Social vehicles • … the underlying social basis for working together, whether manifested through a formal organisation, an informal agreement, agreed roles, shared practices, regular patterns of meeting, events, relationships. • Advantages exist to using existing ‘social infrastructure’. • Attention needs to be paid to this underlying basis.

12. Professional dialogues • Collaboration often involve working across differences in expertise, knowledge, culture, ... • dialogue can ensure cohesion, trust, mutual understanding and so on. • Our context suggests that a premium is placed on understanding: • dialogue provides a basis for understanding and new insights.

13. Personal engagement • Underlying concerns - maximising performance, social ideals, communication? • A role can catalyse engagement • offering contact between social structure and agency. • Capacity for joint action - McIntyre and Dweck • Securing insight - reflexivity, attention and dialogue

14. Exercises (1) • Stories from prior experiences of working collaboratively where persistence was required, discussion resulted in insight, or a social vehicle made the difference? • In pairs, introduce your research interests to each other. Can you identify any common interests in areas that would benefit from collaboration?

15. Exercises (2) • Complete the planning template. • To what extent might the planned collaboration assist the impact of your research – whether on society, the economy, your field or your career? • Who does this planned collaboration connect you to?

16. References • Katz, J. and Hicks, D. (1995) ‘Questions of collaboration’, Nature 375, 99. • Walsh L and Kahn P (2009) Collaborative working in higher education, Routledge, London.