Keynote Address:

Trends, Challenges, and Promises of Collaborative Research

Extramural funding awards and authorship patterns indicate an increasing trend in collaborative research, moving away from the solo researcher model. This dynamic has shown itself across a relatively wide cross-section of institutions, including R-1, regional, and specialized institutions. Collaborative research can offer many benefits to scholars, particularly in terms of seeking extramural funding, broadening research impact, increasing research productivity, and facilitating more efficient dissemination of research products. Education, social sciences, and applied research may be particularly well suited to collaborative research models. Researchers may leverage collaborative relationships in many ways, including using this approach to add domain or disciplinary expertise, topic expertise, or methodological pluralism to best address their research interests. Scholars who conduct research in both single-and-interdisciplinary settings are encouraged to consider collaborative research for specific projects, depending on the desired aims and outcomes. Dr. Marchand identifies different definitions and models of collaborative research, focusing on interpretations of interdisciplinary collaborative research associated with funding agencies and research traditions. She highlights emerging trends in collaborative research and shares findings from studies of effective research collaborations. Her presentation is also augmented by various case examples and applicable anecdotes that illustrate the results of the research findings. Additionally, she focuses on how collaboratives develop over time and change over their lifespan. Despite its many potential benefits, there are challenges inherent to working in collaborative research teams of which prudent scholars should both be aware and give attention when considering collaborative research endeavors. In her address, Dr. Marchand will include practical recommendations and real-world examples about establishing and maintaining positive collaborative research teams that work for everyone involved.

Gwen Marchand, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean for Research and Sponsored Projects in the College of Education and an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Higher Education at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). As the former Director of the UNLV Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, she and her team conducted evaluations of interdisciplinary research centers and institutes using innovative methods. She has research expertise in academic motivation and engagement classroom systems, student mobility, collaborative team processes, and research and evaluation methods. Dr. Marchand is currently the principal investigator on a collaborative National Science Foundation project.