Research Collaborations and Quality in Research: Foes or Friends?

Abstract

Collaboration is the cornerstone of nowadays research. Successful collaborative research and high research quality go hand in hand. Collaborative research needs to build on common and upfront expectations for the quality of its outputs. This is necessary to enable a trustful research environment where all are committed to contribute and can share the rewards. A governance and leadership are critical for this to happen as well as a policy for openness and for effective data sharing. Collaborative research is often large-scale research: to be successful it needs good research practice as an enabler. Collaborative projects are ideal vehicles to promote high research quality, among other by enabling the delivery of results of high external validity and the development and implementation of standards. Robustness of results increases when confirmed by combining different methods and tools and even more when results are obtained while sharing and learning different approaches and languages of science. When doing collaborative research, there is the best opportunity to combine the different experience and expertise of all partners by design to create a more efficient and effective environment conductive for high-quality research. Using as example the public-private partnership type of projects created by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, the chapter covers the key aspects of the complex relationship between collaborative research and quality of research providing insights on the critical factors for delivering both a successful collaboration in research and robust high-quality research outputs.