20 benefits of collaboration you cannot afford to ignore

Research collaboration with other researchers adds value to one’s research. Dr. Scott Wagers, the CEO of BioSci Consulting, outlines the top 20 benefits of collaboration for a researcher in his blog:

1. Higher impact of publications: there is a direct correlation between the number of authors and impact factor.

2. Encourages greater creativity.

3. Future: those you collaborate with today will think of you tomorrow when they are putting together a €20,000,000 grant proposal.

4. Less work: done well, collaboration means less work for everyone without compromising on results.

5. Criticism: collaborators are more likely to tell you, that in reality the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Debating ideas is also important for creativity and achieving group genius.

6. Ability to bring more experience to bear: tapping into the distributed intelligence of a group increases you chances of solving problems more efficiently.

7. Efficient learning: seeing how a team of experts solves a problem is the best way of learning.

8. Wider array of techniques: a collaboration across lab groups, departments or institutions widens the access to a greater number of techniques used for research.

9. Deeper research: in a collaboration you are forced to do more than clip the top of trees with your research.

10. Funding: getting funding in Europe and the US it is typically much easier in the context of a collaboration.

11. Increased number of publications: related to #9 above, the deeper the research the more publications.

12. Better and more concrete networks built through collaborations.

13. Patents.

14. Higher likelihood of becoming commercial.

15. More fun.

16. Knowledge of what others are doing: in particular by simply talking with a fellow team member on the research project.

17. Less risk: there are many more degrees of freedom with a collaborative network than there are with a single lab following a single line of research.

18. Agility: it is far more likely that you can exploit an unexpected finding in the setting of a collaboration.

19. Early adopters: your collaboration partners are almost by definition your early adopters for your novel approach, new technology, or new hypothesis.

20. Impressing investors and funding agencies.

Click here to read Wagers’ full post and more about the benefits of collaboration.

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This article is extracted from GlobalAcademyJobs.com published on 5 November 2015.