MASTERING COLLABORATIONS

This book is a guide for early career researchers (ECRs) in any discipline engaging in collaborative work or who would like to do so in the near future. Its content focuses primarily on how to work with non-academics and practitioner organisations. However, the tools and tips presented can be equally valuable to those engaging in collaborative projects with other academics and to anyone (academic or practitioner) wanting to enhance their ability to collaborate.

Structured in 9 chapters, the guide is implicitly divided into three sections. Chapters 1–3 introduce collaborations: why they are important for researchers, what benefits they can bring, why they can be challenging, and their main typologies. Chapters 4–7 cover tools and best practices to maximise the chances of finding a collaborator and of setting up the collaboration for success. Finally, Chapters 8–9 provide insights and frameworks on how best to initiate, manage, and evaluate a collaboration.

These pages represent a combination of the author's research on the topic of knowledge exchange and academia-practice collaboration and the author's own personal experience collaborating and facilitating cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaborations as a university administrator, a social entrepreneur, and an academic. It thus brings together academic rigour with hands-on advice, practical insights, and case studies.

Contents:

• Preface
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to Collaborations
• The Reasons to Collaborate
• Challenges and Typologies of Collaborations
• The Consideration Phase
• The Initial Development Phase: Identifying Stakeholders
• The Initial Development Phase: Contacting Collaborators
• The Negotiation Phase
• The Initiation Phase
• The Management and Evaluation Phases
• Bibliography
• Index

Readership: PhD and early career researchers in any department and country, as well as organisations interested in working with researchers or already working with researchers and universities.