Update: Research networking and collaboration project

by Fiona | Jul 9, 2020 | Research networking and collaboration | 0 comments

It’s been a busy period for our research networking and collaboration project team (Project E). During May, June and July the team organised and completed a number of online workshops involving our research community. Our purpose was to discover the research community’s requirements for effective collaboration and networking. We would like to offer our thanks to all who took part. This will conclude the preliminary requirement gathering for the time being. Follow up workshops will be organised for the end of the calendar year to assess the research community thoughts and feedback once the roll out of initial networking and collaboration tools such as Office 365 and Teams has been completed.

The team have been sifting through and organising responses from the completed workshops, determining the barriers and issues the research community are facing when using the various tools, platforms and ways of working for collaboration and networking. First impressions are that communications to researchers and the ability to search for those with similar research interests are significant issues. These issues, along with other barriers, needs and specific asks associated with improving collaboration and networking will be forwarded to the relevant teams to address. We will engage with those teams on behalf of the research community to ensure your voices are heard.

The project team has already moved into a second stage of gathering and refining the different researcher requirements. We have started to compile a list of researchers who are prepared to take part in a case study showcasing a particular aspect of networking or collaboration that can be shared with the research community. The participants represent research groups within the University and its associated Institutions. A series of interviews via online video platforms have already been completed in the initial stages of building up the case studies. Again, thanks go to all of you who have agreed to participate in the case study process. To further consolidate researcher requirements, we are planning to organise a focus group before the end of July.

If you would like your research group to partake in a case study, please contact one of the Project E team members via email: