By Ieva Biliunaite Published 17.09.2020
Thanks to COVID-19, over recent months, many of us had to learn how to effectively work and communicate over distance. Meetings and even coffee breaks, all has been placed online. It is only natural, that for some people this has worked better than for others - as ones started to love it, others only to possibly dislike.
Interestingly, some of research work, even in usual circumstances, can only be done online. Many great research collaborations take place online due to researchers being placed in different countries and simply not being able to constantly meet or conduct their work altogether physically in one place.
Being part of international collaboration is certainly very engaging and developing experience. It provides one with opportunity to learn from other research teams about different work practises. However, such collaborations also bring certain challenges. Because of that, in this article I would like to share my experience of working together with researchers from two different countries and lessons that this experience taught me. But first, let me quickly tell you a bit more about the project I was part of.
Over last year, I was working with a group of researchers in Lithuania (my home country) as well as a researcher in the Netherlands, while myself and my supervisor, were staying in Sweden. Over this year, we worked together on achieving several goals, such as designing a program and running a research study. Later, with few of us we continued working on slightly different projects together.
How did this all go? Of course, there were ups and down, but overall, I must say that it was a great experience! That is why I would like to provide you with some tips (or more so ‘Lessons learned’), so that you could also possibly make such experience enjoyable in the future.
Below, I have summarized five, to my opinion most important points that I have learned throughout this experience. I hope you enjoy reading and most importantly, find the information useful!