Today Avondale College ran an innovative staff workshop on Research Collaboration. Facilitated by Associate Professor Maria Northcote, it featured stories from academics such as Dr Malcom Anderson and Associate Professor Lisa Barnes from ABS.
Participants were encouraged to research outside their discipline, outside their faculty and especially outside of the institution, to gain benefits such as:
- Incorporating expertise from multiple institutions
- Helps to mentor early career researchers, students and engage new staff members
- Promotes discipline-based research that is linked to Avondale’s research centres
- Sets our reputation for research in a national and international context.
The ABS shared its current Smart Hub Project success with its reciprocal benefits for Professional Advantage, the students and staff at ABS.
Participants learned that an effective collaborative research project is characterised by:
- Clear goal, aim or research questions
- Role clarification
- Expertise of team members is evident
- Shared understanding of purpose of the project and intended outcomes (publications, products, impact)
- Workload allocated appropriately
- Regular communication, meetings (balance of not-too-many and not-too-few)
It is hoped such sharing of knowledge will encourage more staff will participate in collaborative research projects. For more information about the Australian Code for the responsible conduct of research click here