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Designing Collaborative Research: The Exploration of Common Purposes to Foster the Generation of Cross-Disciplinary Projects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Juliette Brun*
Affiliation:
UMR Agronomie, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay;
Chloé Salembier
Affiliation:
UMR SADAPT, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay;
Benjamin Loubet
Affiliation:
UMR ECOSYS, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris- Saclay
Alexandra Jullien
Affiliation:
UMR ECOSYS, INRA, AgroParisTech, Université Paris- Saclay
*
Contact: Brun, Juliette, INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research), UMR Agronomie, France, [email protected]

Abstract

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Despite the increasing demand to develop cross-disciplinary research projects, designing collaborative research still prove to be difficult due to both scientific specialization and organizational issues. In this paper, we explore how innovative design dynamics can be developed between researchers to collectively build research projects that could become common purposes for collaboration. This work relies on a case study led with the newly formed Eco&Phy research team, who applied an innovative design process to initiate collaboration and design its scientific agenda for the next 5 years. This process was built based on both KCP and matching-building methodologies: it included an initialization phase, during which the team strategically chose topics to be explored, and exploration phases, during which researchers collectively developed new knowledge and concepts to build cross-disciplinary projects. At the end of the design process, the team had developed two new research lines that were integrated in its official agenda. In conclusion, the article discusses the relevance of design approaches to develop original collaborative research through dedicated innovation processes.

Type
Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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