Funding

Successful Collaborations

(Based on University of Massachusetts ADVANCE Program. 2021. Resources for Equitable Research Collaborations: What to Consider in Proposing and Conducting Research.)

Collaboration can improve your project proposals and offers the opportunity to increase your scholarly output.  In addition, funders are increasingly requiring collaboration on externally funded projects. 

In collaborations, each member needs to take responsibility for their individual work while owning the success (or failure) of the overall project.  To be successful, the collaboration needs to contribute to all members’ intellectual and career growth.

Characteristics of successful collaborations include:

• commitment to stated research goals and values
• respectful and equitable environment in which each voice, intellectual input, and effort is valued
• trust, physical and psychological safety, and mutual respect among all members of the collaboration
• openness and transparency, including about progress, challenges, and financial issues
• agreed upon processes for professional communication in person, via email, and in virtual environments (including considering differences in time zones)
• for interdisciplinary teams and multinational teams – clarity about disciplinary frameworks and terminology.

Below are some items to consider during various phases of a collaboration.  In addition see Research Collaboration Best Practices.  

• Decision made to collaborate  
  • Consider creating and having members sign an MOU that:
    • defines the purpose and structure of the research partnership
    • identifies project members
    • clearly articulates roles and responsibilities
    • describes project activities, timelines, and responsibilities
    • describes products and associated responsibilities
    • describes intellectual property and resource allocation
    • establishes a mechanism to resolve challenges.
• Pre-proposal and proposal
  • Address mutual expectations through open discussion.
  • Keep a written record (e.g., meeting agendas and notes).
    • For jointly developed parts of the proposal that emerge from team discussion, assign a notetaker and person to draft the initial section.
  • Clearly divide and establish who is responsible for  various parts  of the proposal and ensure that these roles are assigned in an equitable way.
  • Align budget with roles and responsibilities. 
    • Remember to align the scope of work with the allowed budget.
  • Communicate frequently about progress, concerns, and questions; communicate periodically about what is going well and what needs to be strengthened.
  • Establish authorship and credit processes.
    • Have a conversation about the following questions and how decisions will be made once papers develop.  Where will the results be presented and/or published? Who will be included as authors? What will be the order of co-authors? Who will have the final authority to approve presentations or publications?  Consider using the authorship checklist.
  • Establish access to and use of data. 
    • What type of access will members of the collaboration have to each other’s original data and/or notes? How might members take commonly acquired data in different directions? (Goes back to authorship and credit)
  • Consider potential intellectual property that may be developed.
    • Who has the rights to patentable inventions discovered in the performance of the research? (Note that typically the institution or sponsor has these rights.  See the SIU Office of Technology Management and Industry Relations for assistance.)
  • Identify a conflict resolution strategy.
    • Revisit the agreed upon working approach, norms, and timeline as a tool to frame and resolved conflict.
    • If conflicts should arise that can’t be resolved internally, ask an outsider to facilitate resolution.
  • Determine a succession plan.
    • How are departures of original team members and addition of new team members handled? 
• Funded project start-up
  • Revisit scope of work and budget; make revisions as needed and/or determined by budget changes.
  • If needed, further define roles and responsibilities, including project administration, and outline plan for monitoring those activities.
  • Outline plan for internal and external communication (e.g., with funding agency).
  • Develop decision tree—who makes day to day operational decisions, who weighs in on significant changes to scope of work, budget oversight and budget allocation, grant-funded personnel, pivots in response to ongoing data acquisition.
  • Expand role of Advisory Board to evaluate collaborative activities (e.g., through regular interviews with team members or open-ended questionnaires).
• Project implementation
  • Revisit expectations, roles and responsibilities, and revise as needed.
  • Revisit proposed project timeline and deliverables and revise as needed.
    • Use milestone tracking to determine progress and identify potential problems.
  • Revisit authorship and credit, if needed.
  • Discuss research accountability. 
    • How frequently will the members of the collaboration meet to discuss and evaluate their results?
  • Revisit as needed the data management plan.
• Next steps
  • Discuss next steps – e.g., potential next funding opportunity.

Finding Collaborators

• Contact the Director of Grant Development for ideas and assistance
• Access GrantForward to identify potential research partners at SIUE and other member institutions. Please create an account if you currently do not have one. Contact us if assistance is needed.
• Participate in a speed networking event
• Contact SIUE Research Centers, which provide opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborative research:
  
  • C-PAN
    • The Center for Predictive Analytics (C-PAN) is a university-wide research center that serves both the SIUE community and external partners by using and developing state-of-the-art data analysis, machine learning and data visualization techniques to mine complex data for meaningful insights and real-world applications.

• • IRIS
    • The IRIS Center at SIUE is an interdisciplinary facility designed to support individual and collaborative scholarship that applies digital content as a primary methodology. The center's mission is to facilitate cross-disciplinary projects that involve innovative uses of technology in the humanities and social sciences, support these projects with facilities, equipment, and human resources, foster active collaboration between faculty and students, encourage the development of curricular innovation that makes use of digital applications, and promote digital endeavors that intersect with community initiatives.

• • GeoMARC (Geospatial Mapping, Application, and Research Center)
    • GeoMARC is a research center that is focused on the use of advanced technologies in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, digital image processing, geospatial automation, and machine learning to help solve a wide range of issues within government, private, institutional, and local communities.

• • NCERC
    • The NCERC is a nationally recognized research center dedicated to the development and commercialization of biofuels, specialty chemicals and other renewable compounds. The NCERC’s fully functional dry grind pilot plant and laboratories are equipped with advanced biofuels capabilities including corn fractionation, pretreatment, and a fermentation suite. Facilities are staffed by industry veterans with the flexibility and expertise to design and carry out projects in any region of the advanced biofuels or specialty chemicals space.

• • STEM
    • The SIUE Center for STEM Research, Education and Outreach is a collaborative enterprise among several SIUE academic units, local community colleges and school districts, regional offices of education, and the community at large. The Center’s mission is to develop, strengthen and promote STEM research, education and outreach in the region.