Collaborative Research: An Ontological Viewpoint

 Contemporary aspects of research and scientific innovations often emphasize the integration of different research realms and results in a form of research coined as collaborative research. Collaboration of technologies, views, facts, and philosophies across boundaries of a specific realm often extends the chances of innovation. Collaborative research, therefore, can be viewed as research involving coordination between the researchers, institutions, organizations belonging to different realms. The collaborative concept of research has a profound impact on modern research dimensions and due to its vitality, it results in findings that are often beyond the scope of a single researcher. 

    Some of the engrossing outcomes of contemporary research are collective utilization and optimization of resources, integration of diversified realms for the generation of new scientific knowledge, coalition of scientific elite, intellectual synergies, coauthored publications, the establishment of collaboration management strategies, trustworthy environment and , opportunity for juniors to learn,research and gain experience, increase in professional attitude. Collaboration among the various entities can be of different kinds such as intra- disciplinary where the researchers belong to the same department of any organization or technical fraternity, interdisciplinary where researchers from different research disciplines integrate data, techniques, tools, concepts, and theories to solve research problems which require the integration of two or more specialized knowledge domains, multidisciplinary where the researchers from different disciplines or specializations work independently on a common research problem and convergence which can be considered as a conglomerate of different scientific areas to deal with scientific and societal challenges that endure at the interfaces of different areas. 

    Although the concept of collaborative research contains many promising aspects in itself, certain complicities are highly sensitive and insurmountable as far as this concept of research is concerned. In collaborative research first issue of concern is the chances of invisibility of single researchers within the larger team. There is a possibility that the contribution of junior researchers and coworkers may get subsumed. Another issue of concern is cultural, disciplinary, and linguistic diversity among the researchers may affect the effectiveness of collaboration in an adverse manner. A subjectivist perception to reveal the complexities of collaboration dynamics relating to discipline, culture, management, the relation among the coworkers, communication style, and language skills should be portrayed clearly. Along with this, factors like sharing of credit and responsibility, the concept of elitism, reluctant attitude in sharing or working together, misinterpretation of any form among the coworkers, discontent with a slow collaborator are some other factors of concern in collaborative research. In summary, collaborative research is associated with several promising aspects which can be considered as the explanation for the persistence of collaborative research. Considering the present research scenario, scientific and societal requirements most of the research seems collaboration imperative. Thus, for effective and realistic planning and durable collaboration a subjective holistic perspective of all the associated aspects is needed.

                                                                                     Dr. Sachin Puntambekar

 Associate Professor

 Department of Electronics Engineering