{"id":955,"date":"2014-05-07T17:20:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T17:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/?p=955"},"modified":"2016-01-06T18:10:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T18:10:43","slug":"barriers-to-collaboration-instituto-de-estudios-peruanos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/barriers-to-collaboration-instituto-de-estudios-peruanos\/","title":{"rendered":"Barriers to collaboration: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos"},"content":{"rendered":"
[Editor\u2019s note: this post was written by Francesca Uccelli\u00a0for the\u00a0On Think Tanks Exchange<\/a>\u00a0-an action learning initiative to support interregional collaboration between think tanks. Each participant has prepared a post to share. See\u00a0Leandro Echt\u2019s post on barriers and drivers<\/a>,\u00a0Barriers to collaboration between think tanks: Grupo\u00a0FARO<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Barriers to Collaboration: Budapest Institute<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n The Institute of Peruvian Studies (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos<\/a>, IEP) is a private institution dedicated to research, teaching and the dissemination of social studies about Peru and other Latin American countries. With 50 years of experience, the IEP is Peru\u2019s oldest social sciences research center.<\/p>\n Since its inception, the IEP has grown and evolved by working alongside other national and international research centers and universities. In doing so, the center has developed and strengthened its collaborative relationships with professionals and institutions alike.<\/p>\n Over the last 10 years, the IEP has carried out more than 20 projects involving researchers from two or more institutions undertaking joint research or other activities. This post focuses on some of the IEP\u2019s more recent experiences, which are particularly interesting for analysing the benefits and barriers to collaboration and which provide some key lessons in this respect.<\/p>\n IEP\u2019s collaborations aim to meet different objectives. Amongst the most noteworthy projects are those that bring together different institutions and individuals to:<\/p>\n These collaborative projects have been developed using different working arrangements:<\/p>\n Based on these factors, the different forms of collaboration can be categorized as:<\/p>\n Collaboration is intrinsic to the work of the IEP and its researchers, and can be witnessed in the continuous reflection, discussion and exchange between researchers from across the region and worldwide. Collaboration has contributed in several ways:<\/p>\n Although collaboration can generate significant benefits for an institution, its researchers and the research outcomes, several factors may also create barriers to this kind of work:<\/p>\n When a project involves researchers who speak different languages, a common language, usually English, is used to facilitate communication between these individuals. One barrier that can arise from this situation, however, is that those researchers with lower ability to communicate in a second language find it difficult to participate fully, the fluidity of the discussions may be interrupted and, ultimately, the outcomes of the collaboration may suffer.<\/p>\n Even when the researchers share a common language, local codes of communication must be learned during the process and can sometimes result in misunderstandings or offence. This is more common when the communication is not in person. \u00a0The IEP\u2019s collaborative experiences demonstrate that certain traditions and forms of communication considered correct or suitable in some countries and institutions can present barriers to collaboration with other institutions with distinct traditions and codes.\u00a0 One example is the style and speed of communication via e-mail (for example, more formal communication or an immediate reply), which, given the different expectations of the participants, can produce a barrier to effective collaboration.<\/p>\n Likewise, the profile of the participants is an important factor for good communication. Some researchers believe that it is important for the different collaborating teams to possess similar experience and academic achievements in order to facilitate smoother communication between peers.<\/p>\n While communication between peers can be more fluid project management demands can impose communication styles (oral, written, formal, informal etc.) that may hinder the participation of some team members.<\/p>\n Coordinating schedules and time for interaction and face-to-face meetings is a fundamental issue. Different time zones, for example, can represent a challenge for communication between researchers in terms of agreeing meetings, sending documents and organizing logistics. Even though nowadays better communications technologies exist, researchers are not always familiar with these methods (maybe for generational reasons?) and, hence, new barriers can emerge.\u00a0 Furthermore, these technologies can sometimes fail (e-mails that never arrive, interruptions in communications etc.), producing further problems.<\/p>\n The organisational characteristics of each institution can create barriers to collaborative work, including different ways of managing information, the level of bureaucracy, institutional procedures for budget management and changes to the institutional structure and\/or the agendas of the institutions and funders.<\/p>\n Information management can become a barrier as soon as differences in openness emerge. Institutions do not necessarily share information freely and this can generate a conflict with the other institutions involved in the collaboration.<\/p>\n The level of bureaucracy within an institution can also create a barrier to collaborative work. \u00a0For example, the need to make quick decisions can be restricted by administrative barriers that affect the work underway.<\/p>\n These institutional differences are also clear when it comes to budget management. Different ways of executing the budget (such as expense claims procedures) can create confusion or discontent between institutions.<\/p>\n Changes in institutional structure can also impede collaborative work, for example, when a change in management at one of the institutions results in reduced support for the collaboration underway.<\/p>\n Institutional traditions merge with local traditions, and certain customs and implicit agreements can present an important obstacle for the uninformed partner organization. For example, the requirement to put agreements in writing may be considered offensive to an oral culture.<\/p>\n One barrier that the IEP has come across during its experiences is the difference in agendas between the institutions that collaborate on the project. Indeed, institutions can possess very different motives for participating in the collaboration. These differences are exacerbated when the expectations and interests of the project funders drift away from those of the institutions involved.<\/p>\n If the collaboration emerges out of an institutional initiative yet the researchers do not know each other or have not worked together previously, one possible barrier is the challenge of reconciling different perspectives or ways of tackling a particular issue, which can result in a rather bureaucratic endeavour. In this sense, a lack of trust and previous acquaintance between researchers may pose a barrier to collaboration.<\/p>\n When researchers undertake studies separately, there is the risk that the different components of the collaboration do not tie up. The challenge is to achieve coherence between diverse approaches. Even if the information produced is valuable, the project must be high quality and achieve a rational unity between the studies.<\/p>\n A number of lessons can be identified:<\/p>\n Francesca Uccelli writes about the experience of collaborations of Peruvian think tank IEP. She outlines a number of types of collaboration as well as possible barriers including: language, institutional characteristics and personal profiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
Possible Benefits of Collaboration<\/h2>\n
\n
Possible Barriers to Collaboration<\/h2>\n
Language<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Individual profiles<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Project\u00a0and Management demands<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Institutional\u00a0Differences<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Researchers\u00a0and the Research Outcome<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Lessons Learned<\/h2>\n
\n