Starting & Managing Academic Collaborations

Show: Dementia Researcher

Academic collaborations shape most research careers, yet few researchers are ever taught how to start one, who to trust, or what needs agreeing before the work begins.

Adam Smith is joined by Dr Sarah Marzi, Reader in Neurogenomics at the UK Dementia Research Institute at King's College London, and Professor Georgina Charlesworth, Professor of Clinical Psychology of Ageing and Dementia at UCL and joint lead of the SPIN-D Network+. Also joining are Professor Nathan Davies, Professor of Ageing and Applied Health and Care Research at Queen Mary University of London and co-director of the Alzheimer's Society Doctoral Training Centre for Integrated Dementia Care, and Dr Amanda Heslegrave, Principal Research Fellow at the UK DRI at UCL and co-lead of the UK DRI Biomarker Factory. Between them they run an international research partnership, a national network with around 35 named co-applicants, a doctoral training centre across five universities, and a shared biomarker platform working with research teams across many projects.

The conversation follows a collaboration from first contact to final paper. It starts with how partnerships begin, often from a conference conversation or an email about data, and who should be on the application. It moves on to how to tell genuine collaboration from a request for a service, and how leadership, writing and credit are divided once the work is funded. The guests also talk about what happens when things go wrong, from partners who stop replying before a deadline to difficult meetings that leave early career researchers unsupported.

Their experience points to the same conclusion. Collaborations work best when leadership, contribution, behaviour and authorship are discussed early and revisited as the work changes.

In this episode:

How good collaborations begin, often with an email, a conference talk or someone admitting they need help
Who should be on a grant application, and how large networks decide who stays involved
What to do when the people you approach are planning to lead the same bid
How specialist labs and shared platforms tell genuine collaboration from a request for a service
Who should write a multi-institution grant, and how to share leadership without duplicating every decision
When to discuss authorship, and why it needs revisiting as contributions change
How to handle collaborators who miss deadlines, go silent or will not approve a final draft
Why agreed standards of behaviour protect early career researchers in collaborative and PPI meetings

Essential links / resources mentioned in the show:

Team EMERALD
Dementia Frontiers Fund
The 100-plus Study
UK DRI Biomarker Factory
SPIN-D Network+
INTERDEM
Alzheimer's Society Doctoral Training Centre for Integrated Care
UK DRI Biomarker Factory

A transcript of this show, links and show notes and profile on all our guests are available on our website at https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk.

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We gratefully acknowledge the support of our funders: Alzheimer’s Association, Race Against Dementia, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

The views and opinions expressed by guests in this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the producers, funders, or sponsors.

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