Contacts and collaboration are increasingly important to researchers for new ideas and co-authorship which increases outputs and partnerships with organizations or industry which may offer sources of funding, therefore collaboration activities are increasingly seen as a part of research excellence and also as a sign of co-cooperativeness.
Making valuable connections
Meeting researchers in person at a conference takes time and costs money and you might not actually get to meet the people whose work is most relevant to yours you can also search for researchers through online search, and engage with researchers through social media, but it takes time and your online profile may not show your current research interests as most web content focuses on researchers’ past achievements. It may be even harder to meet suitable research partners when you are in inter-disciplinary research.
Digital platform
Social media and networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Academia.edu, Piirus, Researchgate and blogs can help researchers to get in touch with each other. With so many networking sites available, it’s hard to know which one to use for what as they each have their own strengths and drawbacks. The simplest way to do this is to maintain one, updated profile, while getting all the others to link with it. This is especially important for researchers who want to get involved in cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research.
Advantages
Collaboration increases scientific productivity, among many other benefits and overcome obstacles to go forward beyond your own experiences and contexts. Collaborations can encourage researchers to reach out around the world and broaden their horizons through contact with researchers in similar and related fields. New connections can make real strides towards finding smarter and more effective ways to do research with like-minded colleagues. It’s all about crossing disciplines and finding connections on an international scale.