Communities, COVID and credit: the state of science collaborations

The pros and pitfalls of collaboration, with insights from researchers and beyond.

This week, Nature has a special issue on collaborations, looking at the benefits to science and society that working together can bring. In this collaboration-themed edition of the podcast, we’re joined by Nature’s David Payne to discuss the issue, and the state of research collaborations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode:

02:49 How are research collaborations changing? To answer the biggest questions, research teams are coming together in larger numbers than ever before. But the scientific enterprise hasn’t been set up to support or reward team efforts. We look at how funding systems and methods for giving research-credit need to adapt, to match the reality of modern science.

Feature: How the COVID pandemic is changing global science collaborations Careers Feature: The authorship rows that sour scientific collaborations Careers Feature: ‘We need to talk’: ways to prevent collaborations breaking down

16:45 Community-research collaborations In order to do research that can help communities, scientists need to develop relationships with community members. Creating these bonds can be fraught with difficulty, so we examine how to make them work using the example of Flint, Michigan in the US.

Comment: Community–academic partnerships helped Flint through its water crisis

Nature Video: China and the UK: Making an international collaboration work Take Nature’s 2021 International Salary and Job Satisfaction Survey

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