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Starting & Managing Academic Collaborations · Dementia Researcher Vodcast

0:07
Hello and welcome to the Dementia Researcher podcast.
0:10
Today we're talking about the bit of research that everybody says matters, but very
0:14
few people are actually taught how to do, which is working with other people.
0:25
Hello, I'm Adam Smith. I'm the programme director for Dementia Researcher, and I'm
0:29
delighted to be hosting today's show.
0:31
We have forever been told that research is a team sport, and it's a lovely phrase
0:35
right up until when you're trying to get twelve co-investigators to finish something
0:40
and agree.
0:40
At its best, collaboration gives an idea expertise, reach, and energy that no one
0:45
person could ever possibly provide. But at its worst, it creates more meetings, less
0:51
clarity, and a great deal of invisible work for whoever is organised enough to pick
0:56
it up.
0:56
So this is not a show about how to collect names that will look great on a grant
1:01
application. What we really want to know is how good partnerships really start and
1:06
how you decide who to trust and what needs saying before the grant or paper gets
1:10
underway.
1:11
I'm joined today by four people
1:13
whose working lives are dependent upon collaborations, but in very different forms.
1:18
We have the incredible Dr. Sarah Marzi, who is a reader in neurogenomics at the UK
1:23
Dementia Research Institute and a group leader at King's College London.
1:28
Her work combines experimental and computational genomics.
1:31
And has involved international teams and major collaborative programmes, including
1:36
as part of the Dementia Frontiers Fund and the Aligning Science Across Parkinson's
1:41
Network. Hi Sarah, thank you for joining us.
1:44
Hello, hello.
1:45
Again, of course, you've been on the podcast lots of times before.
1:48
Lots of times.
1:50
And joining Sarah, we have first time on the podcast, Georgina Charlesworth, who is
1:55
a professor of clinical psychology of ageing and dementia at University College
2:00
London. She jointly leads the SPIN-D Network Plus, which connects researchers,
2:05
practitioners, communities of people affected by dementia across the UK.
2:09
Hi, Georgina.
2:10
Hi.
2:11
Next, we have Professor
2:13
Nathan Davies, who is Centre Co-Lead and Professor of Ageing and Applied Health and
2:19
Care Research at Queen Mary University of London.
2:22
He is a principal investigator and co-director of the Alzheimer's Society Doctoral
2:28
Training Centre for Integrated Dementia Care, an eight-year partnership involving
2:33
five universities and 29 PhD students. Hi, Nathan.
2:37
Hi.
2:38
I don't think you've been on the podcast before, but we've done live streams
2:41
together, right?
2:42
We did something once during COVID-19. I don't know if that was a podcast or a live
2:47
stream. I can't remember.
2:49
Well, thank you very much for joining us today.
2:52
And joining us to make up our fourth guest is another regular face you'll have seen
2:57
before, who is the amazing Dr. Amanda Heslegrave, who is a principal research fellow
3:02
at the UK Dementia Research Institute, also at UCL.
3:06
She co-leads the Fluid Biomarker Laboratory and the UK DRI Biomarker Factory, a
3:11
shared platform built around supporting and connecting research across many projects
3:16
and disease areas. Hi, Amanda.
3:18
Hello, nice to be back.
3:20
You're all brilliant and I'm really grateful for you all taking time out to join me
3:25
today.
3:31
So before we start properly, could each of you introduce yourself in just one or two
3:37
sentences and name the collaboration, team, or shared project
3:41
that's currently taking up the most space in your head?
3:45
And Sarah, I'm gonna come to you first.
3:48
All right, yeah, so I'm Sarah Marzi. I'm an epigeneticist working on
3:52
neurodegenerative diseases to figure out how environmental and genetic risk factors
3:58
predispose our brains to neurodegeneration. And we've just recently been awarded
4:03
funding from the Dementia Frontiers Fund as part of our team, Emerald, together with
4:08
Professor Henne Holstege in the Netherlands and Dr.
4:11
Alexi Nott at Imperial College. And there's a lot of paperwork.
4:16
contracting, recruitment, setting up and getting ready for a project start in
4:21
November that's going on right now. So that's very present on my mind.
4:27
Brilliant. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to getting into the story behind that.
4:30
Because when I saw the big news about that, the announcement about that a few weeks
4:34
ago, I thought, ooh, there's gotta be a story behind that collaboration.
4:37
Thank you, Sarah.
4:37
Georgina, let's come to you next.
4:41
Hi, I'm Georgina. I'm a psychologist. I've been at UCL for 25 years now, and the
4:47
collaboration that I'm particularly involved with at the moment is SPIN-D, as you
4:53
mentioned before, which is Sustainable Prevention, Innovation and Involvement
4:58
Network for Dementia, which is one of the Dementia Network Pluses.
5:03
It has on our grant
5:05
I think about thirty-five different named co-applicants that involves not only sort
5:10
of university academics but also community partners and from sixteen different
5:15
organisations.
5:16
I'm not gonna use the phrase herding cats 'cause I'm sure they're all amazing and
5:21
nothing at all like cats, but I can't wait to learn more about that.
5:26
And Nathan.
5:26
Hi, I'm Nathan Davies. So I'm a professor of ageing based at Queen Mary.
5:31
And I've been here for about two years now. And prior to that, I was also at UCL for
5:36
about 15 years. And I do applied dementia care research, so both health and social
5:41
care. And I think probably the one taking up most of my time at the moment is the
5:46
iCARE Doctoral Training Centre. So like you said, Adam, that's quite a large piece
5:51
of work over eight years with five different universities and just under 30
5:55
students. So it's quite a beast.
5:57
I feel like we could even do a separate show here on how many collaborations is too
6:03
many, you know.
6:04
But thank you very much, Nathan and Amanda.
6:08
So hi, I've been now working on biomarkers for neurodegenerative disease for about
6:14
14 years here. But really, I think since the Dementia Research Institute started,
6:19
it's really ramped up in the amount of collaborations and the amount of people that
6:25
we work with. And I'm going to say, I look at most of what we do, 95% of what we do
6:31
is collaboration. So
6:33
we can't function without those collaborators.
6:36
So it is my job to have all of them taking up my mind all of the time and so it's
6:42
really difficult to answer one but I will say one thing that quite excited me
6:48
recently even though it was quite painful was being asked to be a part of a Horizon
6:55
Europe grant which at the time I
6:57
thought about the people trying to organise it all and felt quite sorry for them but
7:02
actually they did it really well because it was awarded to look at the exposome,
7:06
that's what it is, anything we're exposed to and how that affects brain health and
7:11
so we've got the biomarker part of that so yeah thinking about that quite a lot,
7:15
looking forward to it.
7:16
Wow. Thank you, Amanda. I'm interested. I have got a question.
7:20
I'm gonna come back straight in to you. You're gonna get a question now, which is
7:25
how much of your time is doing your own research as opposed to being supporting so
7:31
many other people's?
7:32
Yeah, I mean, I suppose that depends on how I look at all that research because we
7:37
have so many close collaborations, like with the clinical team at the Dementia
7:42
Research Centre, people in different DRI centres, such as the TBI people.
7:47
So I consider, I've worked on a number of these things for years now, so consider
7:52
that mine as well. But in terms of
7:55
I have one PhD student at the moment looking at different methods of remote sampling
8:02
to make it easier, cheaper to measure blood-based biomarkers.
8:07
And I spend, yeah, probably not enough time on that because I have a lot of other
8:13
commitments to fulfil.
8:15
And I suppose it is really your own research, 'cause at some point anybody else's
8:19
study that's got a biomarker element, they just trust you to do that, which is your
8:24
own research. And they don't tell you what to do.
8:26
You design it.
8:26
Yeah. Yeah.
8:28
Fantastic. Thank you very much.
8:38
So to start, I'd like to talk about the bit before the grant application and think
8:43
about how good collaborations actually begin.
8:45
It feels like most worthwhile collaborations begin with an informal connection,
8:50
someone you meet after a talk or an introduction or a paper you can't stop thinking
8:55
about, or somebody admitting that they need some help.
8:58
So Sarah, I'm gonna come to you first. Tell us about a collaboration that began
9:03
quite casually and became something much bigger.
9:06
So I would like to give the example of actually Alexi Nott, who I mentioned earlier,
9:13
and I first met Alexi in 2020 during COVID online when I tried to use some of his
9:19
data from his amazing Science paper on cell type specific epigenomes, and I had
9:26
emailed him
9:27
and he just asked if I wanted to have a chat because we were both working in the
9:31
same field. So, you know, we met on Zoom, and he hinted that he was on the job
9:36
market and actually interviewing across the US.
9:39
And I knew that the UK DRI at Imperial was still looking to recruit maybe one or two
9:44
more people. So I actually put him in touch with the director at the time and put in
9:49
a good word for him. And yeah, that's how he ended up at Imperial, and then we
9:54
shared a lot of the same experiences going through setting up our early labs
9:59
together, and we work on quite similar things, although he comes at it from a
10:04
background that's more based on molecular biology, genetics, genomics in his
10:09
training and PhD postdoc, whereas my own background is more from the quantitative
10:15
side originally. And now we sort of span that whole spectrum, both of us, but we are
10:20
very complementary because our original training and PhDs,
10:24
deep expertise sort of comes from the two different directions.
10:28
And with him, yeah, we've run multiple studies together, but just in the last 18
10:34
months we've received two major grants together, one from the UK DRI, the Key
10:39
Questions Scheme, and then the other grant is the Dementia Frontiers Fund Emerald
10:45
project that I just mentioned, which is looking at resilience and studying
10:50
centenarians from the 100-plus Study that
10:53
Henne Holstege runs in Amsterdam, and really looking at what makes them so
10:58
remarkably resilient to dementia and cognitive decline.
11:02
What made you think, what was it about Alexi that made you think,
11:07
this is somebody I want to work with?
11:09
So the first contact was because I thought the science was so exciting, what he was
11:15
doing and how he was doing it, and also going all the way from sort of the
11:20
statistical big picture epigenetic annotation to really functionally validating a
11:26
specific enhancer that's in a genetic locus linked to Alzheimer's and showing that
11:32
it has an effect that is specific to microglia.
11:36
So bridging that
11:37
whole field, if you will. But then knowing him now for many years, he's a wonderful
11:42
person, really kind and smart and trustworthy.
11:45
And we also work very, very well together. And we've written a few grants together
11:51
now and it's one of my best experiences because somehow we're constantly in touch
11:56
and we're pushing each other and we're complementing our writing.
12:01
So things actually get done pretty quickly when we work together and that's
12:06
been really nice. And because we know each other so well, we can also check in
12:10
really frequently and conversations about, you know, leadership roles, authorships
12:15
or difficult topics are easier because we have that level of, yeah, knowing each
12:20
other well and trusting each other.
12:22
And do you work at the same level? Are you the kind of same grade?
12:26
Are you at the same institution? Do you
12:28
Well, not the same institution anymore because I moved to King's College, but pretty
12:33
much the same stage. We've had our group for the same amount of time, progressed in
12:38
similar stages through the academic ranks. And so really the projects that we lead
12:43
together quite often will be very equal contribution co-led projects.
12:48
And you mentioned the Netherlands, the centenarians work there.
12:54
How did that come about?
12:57
Yeah, so I met Henne several years ago, maybe three years ago or so at a neuroimmune
13:03
consortium meeting. It's this broader consortium that we're both part of.
13:08
And I gave a talk on our research into epigenetics in microglia in the context of
13:14
Alzheimer's. And Henne has been collecting a lot of different layers of omics and
13:20
functional annotation on
13:22
centenarians, both the blood samples that are collected throughout the longitudinal
13:27
study, but also there's a substantial subset of these centenarians who will go on to
13:32
donate their brains to research. And so really looking at those brains as well, and
13:37
there's a lot of proteomics and RNA sequencing and different things going on.
13:41
But she always thought that epigenetics was a key missing link in that picture
13:46
because it can let us link the genetic variants, which are largely non-coding,
13:51
directly to the gene regulatory functional mechanism, which cell types are they
13:57
active in, and which genes do they contact downstream with 3D chromatin
14:01
conformation. And so it's been something she had been thinking about.
14:06
And when she saw my talk, she was excited and she came up to me and we had
14:10
our first chat and have been sort of casually chatting since then and kind of
14:16
waiting for the right opportunity and right grant call to actually apply to, and
14:21
this one seemed really perfect because one of the focus questions was resilience.
14:26
And yeah, it's been a whirlwind because it's a very accelerated grant funding
14:31
scheme. So from writing it to interviewing to the announcement, it was all
14:36
accelerated timelines, but
14:38
it's been really exciting and a wonderful experience so far.
14:42
So the birth of that again comes back to, as I said in my introduction, I guess,
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that you gave a talk somewhere, somebody spoke to you afterwards.
14:48
Yes. That's right.
14:51
I might pick you all up on that and see if that's happened to everybody.
14:54
Because that makes a great case for saying, you know, go to conferences,
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present, follow up on those connections that we're always telling people to do,
15:02
isn't it? Thank you very much, Sarah. And Georgina, you've been very patient waiting
15:07
there. SPIN-D has to bring together researchers and people affected by dementia and
15:11
practitioners and community organisations across all of those four nations.
15:17
When you build something that kind of broad, how do you decide who actually needs to
15:24
be on the application, in the room?
15:27
Well, for that particular grant, it was Chris Fox who first started looking into
15:32
developing it. And he has a particular way of doing this.
15:36
Probably I ought to let him explain it himself, but as he isn't here, I'll tell you
15:41
his method. He just invites everybody who he can think of, who he thinks might be
15:47
relevant to a particular bid, sees who turns up and then sees who's still there a
15:52
few meetings down the line in the development.
15:55
And then works out whether there's any sort of missing skills or expertise that
16:01
requires some additional invitations to sort of bring them in.
16:05
So that seems to be sort of his approach for doing things.
16:10
I think for most of the bids that I'd been involved in before then, we were either
16:16
more local collaborations with people that we already knew, or thinking of what
16:21
Amanda was saying about the Horizon bid,
16:24
being part of a pan-European group, so already being part of a network of interest
16:31
on psychosocial interventions for people with dementia, and then there being those
16:38
sort of cross-European collaborations. But I should perhaps say that as somebody who
16:45
spent a lot of time in the NHS as a psychologist and then between academia and that
16:51
as clinical base,
16:53
but for the SPIN-D project, obviously we were looking to make sure we had
16:58
representatives from all of the stakeholder groups that we thought were going to be
17:04
sort of relevant to that particular call. So start.
17:05
That does sound
17:07
highly risky if you start with a kind of big mailing list of let's just get this out
17:13
there to fifty people. If it turns out everybody comes back and says, yes, you've
17:19
then got the awkward thing of saying, by the way, we're dropping you off.
17:24
Like you were included on the original, but now we've got too many people.
17:29
Or do you start to grade
17:30
people and say, right, you're the core team, you're the
17:33
But no no no, Adam, you've got to remember that people are busy, they've got stuff
17:39
on. People are available, people are not available, people are really interested in
17:44
a topic, people have other priorities. And I don't know, you'd have to ask Chris
17:49
what his hit rate is, or whether there's been occasions when he's then needed to
17:54
pare things down using his approach. But for SPIN-D in particular, we started with a
18:00
big group by the time we had established who was interested.
18:04
We then retained a big group because this was a network rather than a specific
18:10
research
18:10
project. So if we knew that we had a particular work programme that we were wanting
18:16
to follow in terms of research delivery, we might have gone about it in a slightly
18:21
different way from where we were just wanting to make sure that we had a really
18:27
broad
18:27
network so there were lots of people with lots of fingers in lots of pies in order
18:33
to try to continue or further build sort of collaborations between different
18:38
sectors.
18:39
Thank you, Georgina. Nathan, I'm gonna come to you now.
18:42
iCARE, we said in the introduction, brings together five universities for, is it
18:48
eight
18:48
years? This is a long-term thing and responsible for developing twenty-nine doctoral
18:55
researchers. Take us back to the beginning. Where did the idea come from and how did
19:01
that kind of first core team come together?
19:05
As similar to what Georgina is saying, it's quite different when you're pulling
19:10
together a research grant or a project idea as compared to a network or a doctoral
19:14
training centre. So it was quite tricky actually to think about what is the idea or
19:19
the glue that holds it all together really. So we had ideas about what we wanted it
19:24
to include. So we wanted stuff on inequalities, we want to think about
19:28
co-production. I was really interested in end of life.
19:32
But what was it that was holding all that together?
19:35
And, you know, integration is this kind of wicked problem, isn't it?
19:39
How do you get integrated care across health and social care, across different parts
19:44
of care? So that seemed to be a very appealing topic and something that the
19:48
Alzheimer's Society had also highlighted. So they gave quite a bit of steer, I would
19:53
say, in the early days, they wanted it to be around the four transitions or five
19:58
transitions that they had just launched around then as well.
20:01
So we had quite a good steer.
20:03
I think I was at a time where I really wanted to lead something big.
20:07
I wanted to do something big and something different as well.
20:10
And I felt like a doctoral training centre, when this came up, I thought this sounds
20:14
like a fantastic idea. Working with the Alzheimer's Society, I'd had a postdoc with
20:19
them, I'd done multiple grants. So thought this was a really exciting time.
20:23
And they were also really clear they wanted it to be a national programme.
20:27
They didn't want it to be just based at one university, they wanted it to be
20:31
national.
20:31
And again, I thought that was a really exciting time to pull together lots of
20:36
different people from, again, like Georgina was saying, lots of different expertise,
20:40
lots of different disciplines, different people, experiences.
20:43
And so I remember reaching out to Claudia Cooper at the time and saying, I was
20:47
really keen to do this. And I'd spoken to a couple of colleagues at UCL as well.
20:52
And then it just kind of snowballed as to who we thought were some of the kind of
20:56
key players who had experience in this kind of realm of leading doctoral
21:00
centres or doing lots of PhD supervision and having really interesting pieces of
21:05
work that we thought would be good to explore.
21:08
And so that just led on to further conversations, further discussions, and the
21:13
integration theme then came from all those initial discussions.
21:17
And we went to a few different meetings with various groups of people, not everyone
21:22
joined in the end, because there was lots that you can imagine, as we've all in this
21:27
room been.
21:28
This was a national call. There was a lot of people going for this, a lot of
21:32
competition. And so, you know, people did their own thing as well.
21:36
So it was, yeah, it was an interesting time, I would say.
21:40
Well actually you've just picked up on something at the end there that I was gonna
21:45
ask you about. And this might be something you've all experienced, is when you first
21:50
start out to think, right, I'm going to lead an application on this, and you go
21:55
reaching out to people to suddenly find that the people you're approaching are also
22:00
planning to apply for that same thing. And so is there an honest conversation to
22:05
say, well, okay, good luck, I'll go my way, you go your way, or, you know,
22:10
how do you decide whether to team up or to go your separate ways?
22:14
Yeah, absolutely. There were quite a lot of honest conversations in the approach
22:19
with this one. And I was quite clear I would like to lead, but it wasn't contingent
22:25
that I had to be the lead or, you know, that I wouldn't be on someone else's instead
22:30
of leading my own. But you know, I think it's important to be honest and upfront
22:35
when we do these things and just put your cards on the table and, you know, what are
22:41
you looking to get out of that? And that worked
22:44
this time round, I think. You know, people who were potentially interested in
22:48
leading said, I'm happy to support you, I don't need to lead this, I'm not worried.
22:52
And then other people said, we would like to lead this from ours.
22:56
And then in the end, you know, after discussions, it was clear that there were two
23:00
different bids. They weren't necessarily bids that could be merged or wanted to be
23:05
merged really. So I think it's about having those open, honest conversations.
23:09
And we're all used to having those kinds of conversations.
23:12
So I don't think it's
23:13
a bad thing or a too difficult thing to do.
23:18
I think also as well, the way that grant application processes seem to have been
23:24
refined over the last couple of years, particularly, is that with this letter of
23:29
intent stage or this expression of interest stage, the funders are getting more
23:35
proactive in intervening part way through. So rather than having lots of people
23:41
submit a grant application and have to reject them, they kind of reserve the ability
23:47
to say, hey,
23:48
can we tell this other person that you, and kind of encourage you to go together and
23:53
team up?
23:53
Amanda, you've been very patient. I know that people often approach a specialist lab
23:59
like yours or a shared platform because they need an assay or they need a result.
24:04
How do you tell the difference between kind of genuine scientific collaboration and
24:10
transactional requests dressed up as collaboration?
24:13
Because you must get quite a few of those.
24:16
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people, or the people that are probably easiest to
24:21
work with, are the people that engage with me, that will meet and want to meet and
24:27
talk about their project and perhaps do a little presentation, show us what it is
24:33
that they're doing. And then rather than just say, I've got a thousand samples I'm
24:39
going to bring around next Monday, you know, like so
24:42
you can tell quite easily who's going to be a part of it as well.
24:47
And often, and I quite like this because it's helpful to my team as well, their
24:53
junior researcher will come along and be a part of the assays that they're doing
25:00
because sometimes I think it's really important that they know what happened and
25:06
what we were doing and why we insist on certain pre-analytical requirements.
25:12
So yeah, I
25:12
feel like I'm fairly good now at telling who really wants to work with us and who
25:19
just wants us to work for them. Yeah.
25:21
To buy a service. I mean,
25:22
I know we've chatted before that you get so many requests.
25:26
Are there a kind of set of questions that you ask now before you say yes to
25:32
anything?
25:33
I suppose, have you got the money? It's really important actually because a lot of
25:39
people are quite shocked that we won't just measure things for free, which is kind
25:45
of a bit old school I think. But no, do you know what?
25:49
I think partly the reason we've got so many collaborations is that I say yes.
25:55
Mostly I just say yes and then see where it goes, which
25:59
can mean that I have some stressful times but most of the time it proves to be quite
26:06
fun actually.
26:07
So you heard it here first, listeners. Amanda says yes.
26:12
That's amanda.heslegrave at... yeah. Thank you very
26:09
I learned it from my boss.
26:17
much, Amanda. I'm gonna finish this first section here, which has been a long
26:22
section, with a quick one, kind of one question to all of you, and I do want speedy
26:27
answers. If you could choose between a big name
26:30
or technical expertise or somebody you just trust to deliver on time, which are you
26:35
gonna go for? And I'm gonna go to you first, Amanda.
26:38
Number two, the technical expert, the person I could trust to deliver.
26:43
The big names are very frustrating at times. Apologies any big names who are
26:48
listening, they're probably not though.
26:50
What about you, Nathan?
26:53
Same. Someone I trust that I know will deliver.
26:57
Georgina.
26:58
Yeah, yeah, I'm the same too, the technical expertise and the person you trust.
27:02
Yeah.
27:02
Somebody who's gonna deliver on it. Sarah, you've got to say something different
27:05
now. You can't go with the
27:05
I've got to say something
27:06
different, I know. I mean, now I probably agree with this, but I have found in the
27:12
very early stages of my independent career that big names can open quite some very
27:18
locked doors that as an early career PI you wouldn't have access to, and can really
27:24
change how your application is perceived. And they often come with a reputation,
27:30
right? If someone evaluates a grant, for example, and there is
27:35
someone with a stellar track record of delivering amazing results and projects on
27:40
there, that gives them confidence that it can be done again.
27:44
Yeah. And be prepared for the fact though that any of those big names, they might
27:50
not be the big name and the person that Nathan, Georgina and Amanda just mentioned
27:55
there.
27:56
But I absolutely agree with that. Thank you very much.
28:04
So to start this next section, I want to give you all a bit of a hypothetical.
28:09
In your head, you've designed the perfect collaboration.
28:13
Then you have to write the email and make the introduction or ask for the meeting
28:18
without sounding vague or demanding, and also as well, don't want to appear like the
28:23
deadline is next Friday and they're sending this email on Monday, like you've just
28:28
remembered they'd be good. I get a lot of emails like that.
28:32
So Sarah, I'm gonna come to you first. Your work crosses wet lab biology, genomics,
28:38
statistics, computation. How do you approach someone whose expertise you need when
28:44
you don't yet know enough about their field to frame the kind of perfect question?
28:51
Yeah,
28:51
I'm gonna have to slightly redirect the question.
28:54
I don't really do a lot of cold calling on people and I would never design a project
29:00
and only then contact someone to ask them about it.
29:03
So I would maybe cold call to develop something together, but then both of us
29:08
involved in the design process. Or when it's about bringing new technical expertise
29:13
to my field,
29:14
I also never wanted to feel like someone is giving me something for free or it's a
29:19
service where they're teaching us something. So it's often really collaborative.
29:24
And only with people that I've had long-standing work relationships and trusted
29:29
collaborations with might I ask for advice or like, can I send someone to your lab
29:34
to learn something? And one example is my lab has taken on over the last 18 months
29:39
or so iPSC modelling as a new thing. So before
29:42
we did a lot of work on post-mortem brain or we collaborated with others to do the
29:47
cell and animal models and now we do some of the cell modelling in-house and you
29:51
have to start somewhere. So also you hire people with that experience.
29:55
But what really helped is that we're embedded at King's College in a department
30:00
where several people are doing iPSC modelling, particularly for ALS and modelling
30:05
cortical and motor neurons. People that I have now ongoing collaborations with, so
30:10
then it doesn't feel so transactional.
30:12
For example, I've taken on a jointly supervised PhD student and that's really co-led
30:19
by two groups that are producing that work together.
30:23
So that's a good point actually. So if you do notice that you've got a kind of
30:27
skills gap when you start to build your grant, is
30:29
maybe first of all to look internally to colleagues who are immediately around
30:33
you, who you at least have some tenuous connection with 'cause you work at the same
30:38
place, rather than somebody somewhere else who you've maybe never met but have just
30:43
seen their papers or read their reputation.
30:46
Yeah, exactly. I think that helps. I never wanted to feel like I'm just
30:51
transactionally asking for something from someone who's a scientist and a leader in
30:57
their own field.
30:59
Thank you very much. Amanda, I feel like my question here might be a little bit like
31:05
the one you've already answered, but you receive plenty of approaches.
31:09
What makes an invitation easy to say yes to? And what makes you suspicious?
31:14
Obviously you said money before. They're gonna pay you.
31:17
No,
31:18
easy to respond to is when they actually have done a little bit of research and they
31:23
know what we do, rather than assume that we're something else.
31:27
We get lots of people coming to us saying, I want to send my samples one at a time
31:32
and I want the results with cutoffs. That's a clinical lab.
31:36
That's not what we are. We're a research lab. So you don't know what we do.
31:41
So that would be
31:42
my quick answer to that.
31:45
So make sure you've done your background processing, you understand.
31:48
And if
31:49
they... obviously, is that available? I mean, can people find that out about you
31:53
without having to talk to you?
31:54
Absolutely,
31:55
they can look us up. There's a webpage somewhere, I think.
31:58
Hopefully it's up to date. But it certainly is going to say that we're a research
32:03
lab, you know, and there's kind of technologies that we have as well.
32:07
So, you know, people should be able to find that out.
32:10
So make sure you've done your background reading, that you're approaching somebody
32:14
with a request that is actually reasonable.
32:16
Yeah. And Nathan, when you're assembling a grant team, how formed do you think the
32:22
idea needs to be before you invite people in? 'Cause of course too early and there's
32:27
nothing to react to, and too late and it doesn't really feel like collaboration
32:33
anymore.
32:33
Yeah, exactly. So I think it varies. I think you need to have an idea, a top level
32:38
idea of what it is you're looking to do. And then I think have those conversations
32:42
with people that you know would be interested in that field or potential areas that
32:47
you'd be exploring to make sure you develop it together, because otherwise you're
32:51
not going to have their proper buy-in because you've just developed a project, it's
32:56
your idea, you kind of have that ownership and you want ownership across the team
33:00
and for people to buy into it and
33:02
feel like they're part of it, they show up to the meetings.
33:05
There's nothing worse than having collaborators that just come on board and then you
33:10
never see them. So I think having it, you know, from the start, as early as
33:14
possible. But in saying that as well, you sometimes get, you know, quite a way
33:19
through the development plan of it, and you realise that you're missing something,
33:24
you're missing expertise and
33:25
you hadn't really thought of it and you need to pull someone else in who can help
33:29
you understand and unpick that area a little bit more.
33:32
And I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that either.
33:35
But, you know, ultimately you want most of your people quite early on.
33:38
I suppose in that case you just have to be honest, don't you?
33:41
In saying, look,
33:42
we've got this application, it's quite formed already, but we realised we had this
33:47
gap. We thought... bit of flattery doesn't go amiss either, does it?
33:50
You
33:50
would be amazing to bring in on this.
33:54
I think the worst is when you get a funding panel tell you you're missing a specific
33:58
expertise. It's normally a clinical expertise that the panel tell you you're
34:03
missing, and then you get an email off someone saying, the funding panel has told me
34:07
I have to have someone like you. Well, that's not really flattery, so I think it's
34:12
about approaching the right people as early as possible, but, you know, being honest
34:16
about it as well.
34:17
And what I feel is appropriate to bring in there, of course, is that patient and
34:22
public involvement part and that kind of co-production, who, you know, I know from
34:28
experience are very passionate about being as involved in that process as early as
34:33
possible. Have you ever had an experience where doing that has fundamentally changed
34:38
the... 'cause of course, as we said at the start, you've got in your head what the
34:43
perfect team looks like, what your study looks like, but
34:47
sometimes bringing collaborators in can change that direction and not always
34:52
necessarily in the way you wanted to go. How have you handled that before?
34:58
Yeah, I think that happens quite a bit with PPI actually, because you go to them
35:02
with your kind of grand idea that you think is going to change the world or change
35:07
the face of dementia care, and then your PPI will tell you, well that's just not
35:11
gonna work. That's nonsense, you know, that wouldn't have worked for my husband when
35:16
he had dementia. And I think it's really important to listen to that and take that
35:20
on board. And that's the bits that I think are the most exciting, is going back and
35:25
changing. It's this iterative process.
35:27
And the same thing with collaborators and co-applicants as well.
35:30
And you know, for me, I'm not a big data person, you know, I'm much more comfortable
35:35
with qualitative research. But you know, I do a lot of mixed methods and I might put
35:40
something together and say, we could do this. And then the data person comes in and
35:45
says, are you crazy? That's not possible. You can't do that.
35:48
So I think, you know, that's part of the fun of it, I think, and the creativity that
35:53
comes with it.
35:54
That sounds like what Sarah says to people when [inaudible] comes.
35:59
Thank you, Nathan. And Georgina, you've mentioned the NHS a few times there.
36:04
What changes when a collaborator is an NHS service or a community organisation?
36:09
Because you don't just work with researchers, you kind of work with whole
36:15
organisations or services, not just academics.
36:18
What changes about that dynamic?
36:21
The most important thing to remember is that they have a completely different set of
36:27
priorities. The priority absolutely is not doing groundbreaking research that's
36:34
going to be published in any particular journal.
36:38
It's to serve the people that are users of that service.
36:42
And so it makes a difference to timescales, to the focus, to
36:47
the kind of research designs that people are willing to sort of jump on board and
36:53
get involved with. And we've mentioned money already, Amanda mentioned money.
36:59
And most organisations that are service providers are really short of cash.
37:05
And something that we've found really challenging is finding a way to try to make
37:11
sure that universities pay in a timely way to
37:15
organisations that absolutely don't have the funds to keep them going if they've
37:21
been promised money but it isn't coming in.
37:24
And do you find that,
37:25
say, for example, you're involving a not-for-profit organisation, do you have to
37:31
kind of buy in more to the idea that you're inviting them as an organisation rather
37:36
than an individual? And have you had examples where the person then changes?
37:42
It isn't always necessarily the same person who pitches up, because they're
37:47
representing that group.
37:49
Yes. Yes. The answer is we've definitely sort of had that experience, well, I won't
37:55
say especially where, but yes, it can easily happen that you have started the
38:01
negotiations with an individual who then has a change of role or retires or who
38:07
moves to a different organisation, and then you find you're sort of starting from
38:13
the beginning with somebody else within that organisation
38:18
who might have quite a different sort of perspective on what's going on, but you
38:23
kind of just need to sort of roll with it and find a way to sort of make the
38:28
connection and work out how to still have a meaningful and useful sort of
38:33
collaboration, or decide whether in actual fact there needs to be a sort of parting
38:38
of the ways on that particular project, but re-engage for something else in the
38:43
future.
38:44
I was gonna say, I guess in those instances it might be that that organisation drops
38:49
out because maybe that person's role isn't existing in the new structure.
38:54
They're leaving and there is nobody to replace them.
38:57
So I'm gonna end this section by asking everybody this slightly tongue-in-cheek
39:03
question, which is what is the fastest way for a collaboration invitation to lose
39:10
your interest? And I'm gonna go to you first, Sarah.
39:14
I mean I think it's something that we've already mentioned.
39:17
It's when it sounds like you're providing a service, and in my case it would often
39:22
be around data analysis and statistics. So yeah.
39:25
What about you, Georgina?
39:27
I think anything that's really long but you're still not quite sure at the end of it
39:32
what exactly it's asking for. And then the other thing that we've had since we've
39:37
had the SPIN-D network, which involves a kind of core lived experience group, is
39:42
people just saying, can you provide a PPI person?
39:45
You know, as if they're a commodity to be handed over.
39:48
That doesn't sit well either.
39:50
And Nathan, then Amanda.
39:52
I quite often get asked if I'll lead PPI. And I don't think I'm the person who
39:57
should be leading PPI. I think it should be the PPI leading that.
40:00
So
40:01
And for me it's going to be when people email Henrik and then say, if he can't do
40:08
it, would you? You can be the bonus prize or whatever, so that's the way to make me
40:15
lose interest.
40:16
When you are the second choice. Yeah, I can get
40:19
that. That's Henrik Zetterberg, of course. Yeah.
40:22
Thank you very much.
40:30
So we know now what a friendly conversation can do.
40:34
It can get a project started, but it can't run one.
40:37
At some point, the enthusiasm has to become names against tasks and budgets and
40:43
decisions and an understanding of who gets credit for what.
40:48
Nathan, on a big grant involving several institutions, who actually writes it?
40:53
And how do you stop collaborative drafting becoming something that 20
40:59
people add comments while one exhausted person does all the work?
41:02
I think people do it differently. People work in different ways, don't they?
41:07
And I think you need to find the way that works for you and the people that you've
41:12
got around you. I think ultimately one person is going to be responsible for the
41:16
whole thing, because otherwise it will just look like a mismatch and like it's just
41:21
been slapped together. So someone does need to take the whole overall lead and write
41:26
the overall thing. But I think carving it up into
41:29
constituent parts that people can take charge of and feel like they own a part of
41:33
it, I think that's the right approach. So, you know, if we have work packages, you
41:38
put down work package leads, and a lot of the time they have been nominal work
41:42
package leads traditionally. But actually I think we've got a lot better in research
41:46
now, where, you know, work package leads are work package leads and they write that
41:51
part and they lead that part throughout the programme or the project as well.
41:55
So
41:55
it should be a collaborative effort, but ultimately that one person does need to
42:00
make sure it all joins up.
42:02
That's it, isn't it? It's a lot easier then if it's just one person trying to find
42:06
the angle that strings all these work packages together.
42:09
And also as well, I don't know, do you find that...
42:12
I don't just want a comment. If you want something changed, tell me what you want it
42:17
changed to, that I can then agree to, not just
42:19
a comment.
42:21
I think that's particularly important if it's a methodological comment as well,
42:25
where they say, you know, you haven't really incorporated this part of
42:30
implementation theory, or you need to think about this analysis.
42:33
I don't have that expertise. So, you know, you're gonna need to write that for me.
42:38
That's why you're part of this bid, you bring that expertise.
42:42
But I think that's about having conversations very early on,
42:46
you know, when you're writing the bid, how are we going to work together?
42:50
So have those regular meetings. So it's not just about writing it as well, but it's
42:54
about coming together as a team and having discussions, conversations and ways of
42:59
working as well. All easier said than done, but this is how it should be, I think.
43:03
Yeah, getting round the table, getting in a room together
43:06
to do that. Thank you. And Georgina, as you've touched on, you jointly lead a very
43:13
large network with your fantastic colleague Chris Fox.
43:18
How do you make co-leadership work without either duplicating every decision or
43:24
leaving people unsure as to who's responsible?
43:29
Well, we try to have a system and I'm not sure we get it right every time, but we
43:35
keep finding a way to sort of discuss those sorts of things.
43:40
So for the particular network that we're involved with, we know that the finance is
43:47
in Chris's institution and at UCL I only have the money for what's going on at UCL.
43:53
So ultimately the financial stuff is based in Exeter.
43:58
So
43:58
you follow the money for that. And the project manager similarly is there.
44:03
So we've got some quite clear areas of responsibility.
44:07
Nathan had also mentioned different sort of work packages and work streams and who
44:12
leads those. So we try to sort of be clear about who's leading which particular sort
44:18
of activity. But a lot of it just involves making sure that you're in contact and
44:23
know who's doing what. And so we will have a
44:26
meeting each week just to see what sorts of requests have come up, what sorts of
44:31
things have been asked, what emails we've been receiving, just so that we have an
44:36
idea of what the other's doing and saying. And then it's me that meets up with the
44:40
operational leads, the administrator and the network manager, to then consider how
44:45
we put in practice the set of principles that we try to have behind all of our
44:50
decisions. So for all of our activities,
44:52
we try to make sure that there's co-production, that it involves early career
44:57
researchers and involves multiple stakeholder groups, not necessarily all of them
45:02
all the time, but that there's more than one group.
45:05
And so whenever we're doing our decisions, we try to make sure that those sorts of
45:10
principles have been taken into account as well.
45:12
Yeah, that makes
45:13
sense. And it's kind of agreeing up front. Nathan, you talked about work packages,
45:17
but almost dividing down leadership to say, right, these are the bits you're gonna
45:21
take care of, these are the bits I am. Thank you, Georgina.
45:24
And
45:24
In the network, we also try to make sure that we're clear about who has freedom to
45:29
operate around what, because the network is very big and very sprawly.
45:33
And the idea is that it should get bigger as well.
45:36
And so we
45:36
can't have absolutely everything coming back to the two of us, or we'd never get
45:41
anywhere. So we've tried to be clear about when people can, you know, take their own
45:45
decisions about different activities rather than needing to check in for absolutely
45:50
everything all the time. So when do they need to check in?
45:53
And when can they just let us know afterwards what the decisions were?
45:56
Yeah. So agreeing those things in advance, which actually leads me nicely to your
46:00
question, Amanda. So before, you know, any kind of samples reach the Biomarker
46:04
Factory, what needs to actually be agreed in advance?
46:08
Yeah, so we do have, because in order to get money from people, we have to treat it
46:13
as a service. So we actually have a service agreement and this lays down very
46:18
clearly who's responsible for what. For example, even the samples, when we finish
46:24
with them, what happens to them, or that they endeavour to make sure there's no
46:29
infectious diseases, you know, to their knowledge, in the samples they're sending
46:34
us. But I mean, beyond that,
46:36
the conversations that I have with people go right to the start of projects and the
46:42
way they collect samples. And that's where I see the collaborative value of us is
46:48
that, yeah, your samples, once you've got them, and many of them are historical,
46:54
they are what they are. We have an agreement. We do what we say we'll do and job
47:00
done. And then we also have an agreement that we are acknowledged
47:05
in the manuscript that results from these studies, and often with authorship, but,
47:11
you know, I would talk about that to decide what's warranted.
47:15
I mean oftentimes if people have no knowledge of what they're doing with biomarkers
47:21
then my team will be acknowledged in there because they are the ones that randomise
47:27
the samples, that made sure that their results were meaningful.
47:31
So yeah, so there's different levels
47:34
of requirements, and there are people that still snuck through and not acknowledged
47:39
us at all and then come back for advice, which doesn't go down very well, I'm going
47:45
to say.
47:45
Do you have a template? 'Cause I'm guessing you must have a template kind of for
47:49
this now, and that some of that's evolved over time because when you first started
47:53
out you probably didn't necessarily have all
47:56
No, in the beginning, people would just send their samples to us and that was that.
48:03
And then we would use our own money in the beginning.
48:08
Those were the days. But as the Biomarker Factory has evolved, it's meant that we've
48:16
had to formalise everything. The document is
48:20
signed by UCL Legal, you know, they're the people who put it together, and there are
48:26
no changes to be made to it now. But things are still evolving in the way that we
48:31
work with people, which is only for the better actually, because we're more
48:36
experienced now. And now we're able to kind of work up plans with people who want to
48:42
do clinical trial samples, etc. So, you know, the remit is widening.
48:46
Yeah. Thank you. And Sarah, papers can create their own kind of version of the same
48:54
problem, I think, as Amanda's
48:57
just touched on. At what point do you discuss authorship and contribution, and how
49:03
do you revisit that as a kind of project evolves and, you know, what you thought at
49:09
the start might not be what turns out at the end?
49:12
Yeah, so I think, I mean, generally early is good.
49:16
I wouldn't say I do it at the very start of a collaboration because that would be
49:21
slightly preposterous, to already think about what the hypothetical exact paper is
49:27
that comes out of it. But as you are generating output and in your mind the
49:32
structure of a paper starts to form, that's probably a good time to start discussing
49:37
this, and
49:38
sometimes it's quite clear that there is a person that has managed everyone else and
49:43
led efforts, and it's still worthwhile speaking with the other senior people and
49:49
just ensuring that they're on board with that.
49:52
And I think that's the person that has the ultimate responsibility of managing the
49:57
politics behind the authorship. Sometimes it's a more genuine joint effort and,
50:03
as a very collaborative researcher, I think joint firsts and joint senior
50:08
authorships are something great and something that reflects actual contributions and
50:14
actual collaborative work. So I'm always a fan of that when there are equal
50:19
contributions. And then probably I also have these discussions with my team members
50:25
and the ECRs that do the hands-on work on the collaboration, to see.
50:30
I mean, I ask, and I'll probably make some suggestions for authorship, but I want
50:34
people to be happy with that and there's definitely open space for discussion.
50:39
And then as you indicated, sometimes the paper changes just as you are creating it
50:43
or in the revision and someone else puts in a lot more work.
50:47
So it has to be revisited, and I try to communicate that clearly from the beginning,
50:51
that it's dynamic, but it's important to have those conversations relatively early
50:56
and then we shape it and it really should reflect
50:59
the contribution that was actually made to the final project.
51:02
And I think in general, my approach is be generous with it.
51:06
So if someone is giving us, training us on something, doing something small for us,
51:11
I think all of those things should be rewarded with authorship if that's what they
51:16
want. So sometimes I'll ask people if they would like to be included as an author,
51:20
or sometimes if they're, for example, working for a facility or service, they might
51:25
prefer an acknowledgement or like
51:27
the grant funding acknowledgement and that's just what they do.
51:32
But depending on what they do, I do generally offer authorship as well.
51:37
It feels like not getting authorship is the one thing that can immediately get you a
51:42
bit of a bad reputation, isn't it? You know, I meet lots of researchers across the
51:48
day and if you say, what's going on, that'll be the one thing that's annoying them
51:53
at a particular time, is when they didn't get
51:56
some credit for something. And as you say, co-first authorship is a great way to
52:01
spread this around.
52:01
Yeah, absolutely.
52:02
I will say I think there is a balance. I'm also not a fan of gratuitous authorship
52:08
just 'cause someone attended one meeting at one point some early time in the
52:13
project and then hasn't contributed anything to the work or intellectually.
52:19
Yeah, there is a lot of that too. Thank you very much.
52:22
You know,
52:23
I'll just say one thing there though. I remember when I first started, I would make
52:29
my postdoc's cells for her, so their astrocytes, I would culture them from their
52:35
pups. And she put me second on a paper she wrote, and I was utterly amazed, no one
52:40
had ever done that before. And I said to her, but how come you've put me on here?
52:46
She went, look at those other names, they didn't do anything.
52:50
There you go. Sorry, that was my little anecdote there.
52:53
No, I think that's an important point, to give that credit.
52:57
When we did our big ECR dementia survey, we actually had a conversation and said,
53:03
right, who needs some papers? Who actually needs some senior authorship, who needs
53:08
some first authorship right now, to divide this up between us?
53:13
I mean they're only, you know, career papers. They're not scientific ones in the
53:18
same way, but
53:19
it's a conversation about who would benefit the most from this, because you're all
53:24
so senior now that of course you don't care any more about papers, do you?
53:29
The universities do, unfortunately.
53:33
I am, of course, teasing, as I write an article right now about promotions.
53:39
I'm
53:39
very aware of that. Thank you very much.
53:47
So we've talked about how good collaborations are built, but now let's talk about
53:52
how they fall apart, when people miss deadlines and somebody agrees to do everything
53:57
in a meeting and then delivers nothing afterwards.
54:00
Nathan, without naming any names, has this happened to you?
54:04
Is there a collaboration that became harder than you expected?
54:08
Were there warning signs early on? Is there anything you wish you'd done
54:13
differently?
54:13
I mean it's hard to say too much, isn't it, without being quite obvious who you're
54:20
talking about, I think. I've had a few difficulties, I would say, in terms of
54:26
collaborations, but they've been across a range of different things.
54:31
So I've had challenges when putting a bid in, chasing people who just haven't
54:37
contributed what they said they would do to the development, demanding more FTE,
54:43
you know, more time, more money, when you know they're not gonna actually commit
54:48
anything like what you're putting down. And then I've had challenges with PhD
54:53
supervision as well, where the other supervisor just doesn't provide or doesn't show
54:58
up and doesn't support in the way that they should.
55:01
And then I think a big challenge I've had is when you start also collaborating with
55:07
non-academics as well. So academics have issues between each other, obviously, with
55:12
disagreements about science and research, but it's also when you're working with
55:17
people from other organisations that have different priorities, different
55:22
approaches, and it's about understanding those different priorities, those different
55:28
approaches, and how you can come together on some shared kind of understanding.
55:34
And it's probably politically incorrect to say it, but I've had some quite
55:39
challenging PPI meetings and discussions where
55:42
it's been very challenging and junior researchers have been quite upset by the way
55:48
that they've been spoken to and haven't been supported.
55:52
And I think that's important, that when we set up groups like that and work
55:58
together, that we're really honest and say respect works both ways.
56:02
We all need to respect each other. And this is the behaviour that we expect from
56:08
each other and
56:09
this is what we won't accept, and this is our red line basically.
56:13
So I've had to handle quite a few in the last couple of years where that's happened,
56:18
and that's quite challenging, I think.
56:21
Yeah. It is particularly awkward when it's PPIE because of course they're not held
56:26
to the same... or are they? I mean, we should hold everybody to the same kind of
56:31
professional standard, and they're there to give their opinion, but equally, you
56:36
know, there's gotta be a sense of civility around that, hasn't there?
56:41
Definitely. And you know, we're all scientists, we all engage in open debate and are
56:46
happy to take critique and discuss, and people have different views, but it's about,
56:51
yeah, I think it's about delivery and how you behave.
56:54
And that I have had to confront, because I think there is a way, you know.
56:59
At the end of the day we all want to do good, we all want to support the cause, we
57:03
all want to support each other. And I think it's just about ensuring that everyone
57:08
understands that and remembers and respects that.
57:11
And I think that's important. I've dealt with that and then I've logged on to my
57:18
LinkedIn and been talked about, not named but talked about, by certain members of
57:24
the community. And I don't think that's appropriate.
57:28
Yep, I understand. Georgina, how about you? Same question really.
57:32
When collaborations start to break down, have you had that experience?
57:37
How have you dealt with it? Whether it's people not replying to things or things
57:42
going awry?
57:43
Yes. Well, I think it's not at all unusual, is it, for people to either not see eye
57:49
to eye or have quite different perspectives on a topic.
57:53
And I think that the greater the diversity of views and opinions, often the more
57:59
time you need to sort of spend trying to make sense of where people's different
58:04
perspectives are. And I recognise what Nathan's saying about there's times when
58:10
early career researchers
58:12
in some circumstances can feel really bullied, by either senior researchers or by
58:21
public contributors, when views are expressed very vehemently or when there feels to
58:30
be personal attack. So having enough people involved to be able to provide support
58:38
to all parties,
58:40
and also having some guidance and some trusted people within the system, ends up
58:48
being really, really important. So now research isn't just about sort of
58:55
understanding different disciplinary perspectives and finding a way to navigate
59:02
that. You also need to be working very much with
59:07
different individual personalities, which isn't always what researchers have as
59:15
their main skill, shall we say.
59:18
Sarah, Amanda, do you have a particular strategy that you employ when a collaborator
59:25
starts to miss their deadlines and not respond to emails?
59:29
Are you just very polite? Are you a polite prompter?
59:33
How do you do that, Sarah?
59:35
Mostly polite. I mean, maybe I'm slightly more direct in my German-ness.
59:40
And often when they're close collaborators, if it gets really desperate, I often
59:46
also have their phone numbers. So if they do not reply to three or four emails, they
59:52
might get a WhatsApp message as well. And
59:55
so it'll be polite, but eventually it'll be framed around, you know, what is the
1:00:01
problem and the solution. It's not like I'm an angry person who is trying to push
1:00:06
them for no reason, but it's often because there is a deadline that was externally
1:00:11
set, and so framing it more as a desperate in-need situation rather than angry
1:00:17
pushiness, I think.
1:00:18
Yeah. I agree. What about you, Amanda?
1:00:21
Normally people come to me because they need something, and so if they then don't
1:00:27
respond, send the samples or whatever, then when it's urgent I'll just ignore them.
1:00:33
So there you go.
1:00:33
Well, of course I'm making out here like you're the ones that people don't respond
1:00:40
to. Do you ever find yourself being the one who's getting those emails?
1:00:45
Sarah's nodding.
1:00:45
Yes, all the time. All the time. I'm terrible.
1:00:49
Like, I feel like, I don't know if this is true for everyone, but like there's too
1:00:54
much that I'm expected to do, more than I can actually do, by collaborators,
1:00:59
university administration, lots of administrative work, supervision work,
1:01:05
my team, others. And I've just come to accept that I can never do everything.
1:01:10
So some things do fall off the radar, and then I'll feel guilty.
1:01:14
I'm quite good when I'm prompted though, then I feel really guilty and then I
1:01:18
probably will get back then.
1:01:26
Okay, we're nearly out of time, so I want to finish with a quick collaboration
1:01:29
clinic. I'm gonna give each of you a situation, and I want you to tell me the first
1:01:33
thing you would do about this. And actually, Sarah, my first one that I
1:01:36
pre-prepared, you've already kind of just answered.
1:01:38
So, Sarah, I'm gonna come to you
1:01:40
first. The ideal methods collaborator was enthusiastic in the first meeting, but
1:01:45
they've now gone silent. And the grant deadline is three weeks away.
1:01:49
What's your first move? What are you gonna do?
1:01:52
Replace them? Give them a chance?
1:01:54
No, give them a chance, polite emails. I have replaced a collaborator about two
1:02:00
weeks before a grant before. But I would give them a chance, I would press them to
1:02:06
make a decision and also to say, you know, if it's not for you after all, that's
1:02:12
totally fine, but please let me know, so I can make a plan B very quickly.
1:02:17
But yeah, so I think it's incremental, right? You reach out politely and then it
1:02:23
gets more urgent, and if
1:02:24
maybe two weeks or a week before you still don't have anything, then I'd probably
1:02:29
send a friendly email and say, listen, grateful to have started this collaboration,
1:02:34
but I really need an input, so therefore I'm gonna approach someone else now.
1:02:39
Would you put a deadline on that? Would you say, if I haven't heard back from you by
1:02:43
this date... And then you're gonna stick
1:02:42
Yeah, I would. I would. Yes.
1:02:45
you're just gonna ghost them after that, right?
1:02:48
You're not gonna kind of say, hey, you didn't reply, you just never email them
1:02:51
again. They're dead to you now.
1:02:52
Yes, that's... I probably would, because at that point that's...
1:02:57
yeah.
1:02:57
Thank you, Sarah. Georgina, a community partner tells you that the research question
1:03:04
is wrong, but after the bid is like ninety-nine percent there, it's fully drafted,
1:03:10
it's ready to submit. What's your first move?
1:03:13
To try to understand why they think it's wrong, spend a bit of time trying to make
1:03:19
sense. At that stage, clearly it's unlikely to be a change.
1:03:23
Well, it isn't, but to make the effort to try to understand what the nature of the
1:03:28
concern is and to have some kind of plan for how those concerns will be taken into
1:03:33
account when it would be appropriate to do so.
1:03:36
So maybe for
1:03:37
a different bid, maybe later further down the line, depending on the nature of the
1:03:42
concern.
1:03:42
So is that you try to talk them into it, or you trying to say we'll address it, you
1:03:47
know, reassure them and we'll address
1:03:50
I mean you can't make a plan to decide how ultimately you're going to respond unless
1:03:55
you have an idea about what the nature of the concern is.
1:03:58
So my thing one is to understand why it is that they feel that it's wrong.
1:04:03
And it might be that the conversation then goes to sort of just explaining that at
1:04:08
this stage in the game it's not possible to change it, or it might be that their
1:04:12
concerns aren't really to do with the research question, but to do with some other
1:04:17
aspect of the
1:04:18
operationalisation of things, which might be changeable later, or it might be that
1:04:23
they've just got a different idea that you park and then see whether it's something
1:04:27
you want to pick up on in a different project another time.
1:04:30
So, you know, until I know what the nature of the concern is, I don't know what the
1:04:35
action plan's going to be.
1:04:36
Understand the problem, absolutely. And Nathan, a partner institution's costings and
1:04:43
support letter are missing forty-eight hours before submission.
1:04:48
What are you gonna do?
1:04:49
I mean, first of all, it's not uncommon. That's quite common.
1:04:53
I think give up on the emailing them and call them, if you've got a phone number for
1:04:57
them. I think call their research office or their finance office for the university
1:05:02
and try and get them to sort it out. But also speak to your own research and finance
1:05:06
office, because quite often they can speak to the universities on your behalf as
1:05:11
well and will do a lot better chasing than I would.
1:05:13
And then ultimately you give them a deadline and say, it's getting submitted at this
1:05:18
time with or without your costs.
1:05:19
And as soon as you tell people they might lose the money, they'll soon get back to
1:05:24
you.
1:05:24
Pick up the phone. Nobody does that anymore, do they?
1:05:27
It's amazing how many times you phone people now and it's like, what?
1:05:30
People have forgotten how to talk on the phone these days.
1:05:32
Close collaborators I've got on WhatsApp, so I'll just WhatsApp them.
1:05:37
And Amanda, samples arrive with incomplete information and the team expects results
1:05:44
in two weeks. What's your first move?
1:05:47
The move is we always tell people that they can have their results within two
1:05:53
months. So that wouldn't be an option. However, I mean, they'll get the results when
1:06:00
they've helped us to do what's right. So I would contact them and say, you need to
1:06:06
help us and then we can help you. So I think, yeah,
1:06:10
they expect the results, but they'll get them when we've got all the information we
1:06:14
need to do them, and I'd let them know that. So that's not a problem.
1:06:18
And then they're just gonna phone and influence you.
1:06:21
Lean on you as a friend. Amanda, Amanda, you can do this, right?
1:06:26
You can...
1:06:27
We can't, not without the right details, can't, no.
1:06:31
Good point. Okay, and a last question for everybody, and you'll all have had this,
1:06:36
and I have too. A paper has been stalled for six months, and probably because one of
1:06:42
you hasn't... no, not really... because one co-author won't approve the final draft.
1:06:48
What do you do, Sarah?
1:06:49
Well, I mean, it depends on how big the contribution of that co-author is.
1:06:54
I mean, everybody gets to see and comment on the final draft, but I always give a
1:06:59
deadline, and the understanding or the communication is that if you don't say
1:07:04
anything by that deadline, I will assume that you're happy with this final draft.
1:07:09
Yeah, that's my go-to move as well. What about you, Georgina?
1:07:13
I think, if at all possible, try to avoid getting into that situation in the first
1:07:19
place. So if you're doing papers within a sort of research programme or a network,
1:07:25
make sure that you've got a sort of research strategy, authorship and contribution
1:07:31
sort of agreement that's discussed at the beginning, and make clear who has the
1:07:37
say-so in
1:07:38
any particular paper, who makes the final call as to whether or not somebody's still
1:07:42
part of that paper, depending on the nature of their contribution, the timeliness of
1:07:47
their responses.
1:07:48
Warning signs are often there early on, aren't they?
1:07:51
It won't be the last draft that they haven't been quick to respond to.
1:07:55
What do you do, Amanda?
1:07:56
I mean, like Sarah was saying before, offer them a date and say, this is getting
1:08:03
submitted as is. We'll assume you're happy, and you need to tell us to remove your
1:08:10
authorship if you're not.
1:08:12
Do you have a different approach, Nathan?
1:08:15
No, I think same thing. Unless they have not contributed or been in correspondence
1:08:19
at all, then I think I would go with the latter of what Amanda said, that, you know,
1:08:24
if we don't hear off you, we'll remove you. But it depends.
1:08:28
It's not quite as simple as this way or this way.
1:08:30
I think it depends on what the paper is, how important it is, how much their
1:08:35
contribution has been, and when did they lose contact, really?
1:08:38
Yeah. It also takes a certain level of confidence to do that.
1:08:41
I feel like you're all very well established in your career, that you would feel
1:08:45
confident doing that. But I guess a PhD student on their second paper probably just
1:08:50
needs to go and have a chat with their supervisor.
1:08:53
Maybe that email isn't necessarily coming from
1:08:53
Yes. That's why I think
1:08:55
them.
1:08:56
the ultimate responsibility for the authorship and that management needs to rest
1:09:01
with the senior author.
1:09:03
Yeah. Senior authors should do their job, right?
1:09:07
Step in.
1:09:08
Yes.
1:09:11
Okay, before we finish, complete this sentence with one line or word.
1:09:16
A good collaborator is someone who
1:09:19
would be prepared to meet me face to face to talk through the project, because
1:09:24
that's the way that all the best things start.
1:09:27
Nathan, a good collaborator is someone who
1:09:31
is fun and reliable.
1:09:33
Georgina, a fun collaborator... No, a good collaborator is someone who
1:09:39
listens and respects others' perspectives.
1:09:42
Good. And Sarah, you can have the last word. A good collaborator is someone who
1:09:47
is trustworthy, fun, and is an equal contributor.
1:09:53
Thank you very much, Dr. Sarah Marzi, Professor Georgina Charlesworth, Professor
1:09:58
Nathan Davies, and Dr. Amanda Heslegrave for joining me and for giving us the
1:10:03
version of collaboration that does not usually fit on the grant summary.
1:10:07
What I take from this is that a good collaboration is not one where nothing ever
1:10:12
goes wrong. It's one where people can say awkward things early, they can make
1:10:17
decisions clearly, they can fix problems without playing games, and
1:10:22
make sure everybody gets credit properly. And what all of you have made clear from
1:10:27
this is that it's all about communication. It's all about putting things in writing,
1:10:33
having the conversation, trusting and finding people you can work with, and together
1:10:38
you can solve problems. And that who you choose to work with is just as important as
1:10:44
the impressive names on your application. You'll find links
1:10:48
to our guests and their projects, and further information and resources on building
1:10:53
research collaborations, in the show notes and on our website at
1:10:56
dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk. Do also visit us in the Dementia Researcher
1:11:01
community, where you can meet other researchers across disciplines and career stages
1:11:06
who are all, I'm sure, very interested in collaborating with you.
1:11:10
I'm Adam Smith, and you've been listening to the Dementia Researcher podcast.
1:11:14
Thank you very much.
1:11:15
Thanks.
1:11:17
Thank you.