Collaboration counts

The world of research is an increasingly collaborative world. Scholars from many disciplines must work together if they are to solve the inherently complex, “wicked” problems – tough economic, environmental and political issues.

International research collaboration is increasingly sought in an interconnected world where no country has a monopoly on ideas and international perspectives offer new insights. The advent of new statistical and computing tools to analyse and make sense of large data sets has provided an impetus for scholars around the world to pool ideas and data to produce more reliable information and answers, for example, in the domains of health and disease prevention. And industry and universities are enjoined by governments to engage in sometimes edgy partnerships in the cause of improving national innovation and productivity.

Many collaborations underperform or end in frustration and failure, often because they are “pseudo-collaborations“ with little synergy of purpose, weak and directionless leadership and little trust been partners.

Recently I became involved in what I now call the Shadchan project – essentially an exercise in marriage brokering to strengthen research collaboration between two great Universities – the University of Melbourne and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The term Shadchan in Jewish tradition refers to a marriage broker who introduces a young man and woman to each other hoping they will become a happy couple.

In 2008 the University of Melbourne and the Hebrew University (HUJ) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to foster close academic exchange and research collaboration.

I quipped at the time that the “marriage” between the University of Melbourne (established in 1854) and the Hebrew University (established in 1925) was a match between a 154-year-old groom and an 83-year-old bride and both had a history of playing around, especially Melbourne which has MOUs with more than 200 other universities.

But there was optimism the “match” would work. Although continents apart, Melbourne and Jerusalem are ideal partners for strong research and academic collaboration. They are rated the top universities in Australia and Israel respectively because of their outstanding research performance and academic excellence. They hold the same values underpinning all great universities – a passion for learning and discovery and a commitment to the creation and sharing of new ideas. And significantly the union was blessed with dowries to the bride and groom – a funded MOU to provide the necessary resources to support the relationship. Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis said at the time that the international agreement provided scholars “with unparalleled opportunities for collaborative research on a range of significant issues facing both Australian and Israeli societies”.

The partnership languished until mid-2011 when Professor Steven Prawer (Melbourne Materials Institute) and I visited Jerusalem and met Professor Yaacov Schul (Vice-Rector HUJ) to design a strategy for building the research partnership.

We decided to undertake some “top-down” strategic planning, to identify research areas of mutual interest and complementary capabilities in Melbourne and Jerusalem and create opportunities for teams to come together to plan new joint projects and initiatives.

We identified two research areas: innovation studies, and migration and refugee studies.

Innovation studies because Australia has a vital interest in improving national innovation and competitiveness while Israel, a hub of hi-tech innovation, has many well-recognised scholars in the field and is open to partnership. Melbourne and HUJ are strong in migration and refugee studies, and given the importance of migration, refugee and asylum-seeker policy and attitudes to Australia and Israel this was a great opportunity for cross-national and cross-disciplinary collaborative research to advance knowledge and inform policy.

It was agreed that Melbourne would host a visit from a HUJ delegation of researchers in February 2012 in the areas of innovation studies and migration and refugee studies.

No sooner had the February visit been announced than other researchers in Melbourne and Jerusalem in other fields said they wanted to be involved. For example Professor Andrew Kaye, Head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Melbourne, who is working on ground-breaking research into brain cancer diagnostics with Professor Tali Siegal, Head of Neuro-Oncology at the Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Centre. And Professors Andrew Mitchell, Tania Voon and Jurgen Kurtz of the Melbourne Law School who are working on principles of international economic law with Professor Tomer Broude of the Minerva Institute, Hebrew University.

So in the week February 13-17 four teams comprising 12 Melbourne researchers and 11 from HUJ gathered in Melbourne.

The week began with a research showcase event at which the researchers discussed their work and the opportunities for international collaboration.

The six-person joint migration and refugee studies team had grown by the end of the week to 10 members. The team mapped out the content of a new book, Migration Challenges: Australia and Israel, planned a joint conference for Jerusalem in 2013 and discussed how they would use the book as the foundation for a long-term joint research agenda.

The Brain cancer research diagnostics team led by Professors Kaye and Siegal had an “outstandingly successful week, enhancing Melbourne-HUJ collaborations in the clinical neurosciences”. Professor Siegal spent most of the week interacting with PhD students and senior scientists on The Royal Melbourne Hospital campus.

The International economic law team strengthened its existing partnership and explored new perspectives in immigration law “with some Eureka bulbs flashing”. Plans were made for a student exchange between the HUJ and Melbourne programs and involvement of National University of Singapore in a three-way exchange.

The Shadchan Project can be regarded as an experiment in how to fast track and foster vibrant international research collaboration between universities.

Valuable lessons have been learned from this initiative in marriage brokering. They include lessons about the role of champions in the partner universities who persistently advocate the partnership and find ways to make it work, the value of a long-term perspective to build the relationship over time and across several domains to develop cross-organisational learning and trust-building.

Melbourne teams will visit Hebrew University in 2013.
http://www.research.unimelb.edu.au/