Reasons, Success Factors and Disadvantages of Research Collaboration

Abstract

In recent years, the number of both co-authored publications and authors per publication in the national and international literature has increased. Co-authored publications are a result of voluntary research collaboration among academics. This study aims to investigate the reasons for research collaboration, the factors affecting the success of research collaboration, and the disadvantages of the collaboration perceived by researchers. For this purpose, qualitative research was conducted, and interviews were conducted with ten academics with different titles working in different disciplines. Among the reasons for collaboration, the most frequently reported reasons were increasing the quality of publications, ensuring learning and development, improving social relations, expertise, and access to resources. Factors such as being honest and trustworthy of the research partner, fulfilling the responsibilities of the parties, interpersonal harmony, complying with the business plan and calendar are among the factors considered to affect the success of the collaboration. Some of the perceived disadvantages of research collaboration are the low reliability of the contribution to multi-author studies, the division of academic achievement score by the number of authors, the difficulty of proving individual achievement in co-authored studies, and problems related to the research partner.