Using a business framework to advocate for international research collaboration

What is the purpose of international collaboration and why, with the increased risks associated with sharing new scientific information across borders, would anyone decide to go through the bureaucratic maze to find a suitable, agreeable way of doing it? 

To answer such questions, let’s borrow a business framework known as PESTEL, which combines political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. This framework is typically used to capture the macro-trends present in a specific society at a certain moment in time. Using it can help researchers interrogate the multi-faceted implications of international collaboration in research.

Politics

Science and, implicitly, scientific research should be done for the benefit of the whole world. Once secrecy becomes a priority in research, only a small fraction of society benefits from it.

Politics should be excluded from scientific research, but this is utopic. Unfortunately, advanced research is often strongly regulated in its international exposure by political measures. Still, one can foresee how research can bridge the gap between politically diverse countries and regions. Imagine that global issues are addressed by research developed coherently across different countries. We would have all the puzzle pieces we need at our disposal (although we might still need the strategy to piece the whole picture together). In such a situation, we must put aside political differences and focus simply on scientific affinities when designing a research project that involves international collaboration.

Economy

The nature of the present world is variable, uncertain, confusing and ambiguous (VUCA). The term VUCA is generally used to describe the dynamics of business environments as technology advances rapidly and unpredictably in recent times. In scientific research, however, VUCA attributes are necessary to make progress; a researcher must understand the variability of a phenomenon, the finite degree of certainty, the confusion created by different sets of data and the ambiguity of new data without a demonstrated background theory. Scientific research must reveal the unknown, bringing up elements of VUCA, and this is how it should be.

How does all this relate to the economy? First, the drivers of the economy often push research in specific directions. Second, the economy’s stability influences the stability of research institutions. And, third, the economic policy largely determines funding for carrying out fundamental research. Under such conditions, researchers would benefit from positioning their research on global parameters, for instance on climate change and pandemic prevention as the two axes, since these issues are globally relevant. 

Society

Scientific research rarely reaches the eyes of the public, unless Nobel Prize season is upon us. Otherwise, it hovers somewhere in the background of a functioning society, ensuring that such a society has the seeds for a bright future. As change accelerates around the world, actions driven by long-term purposes become less and less attractive. This is detrimental to society, as long-term dreams vanishing away often take with them the confidence in a bright future and the optimism necessary for dynamic action.

The truth is that fundamental research doesn’t need to transform into commercial products. Fundamental research – as well as applied research, for that matter – can be shared widely in society as an exercise in thinking deeply and widely about the realities of the world.

This makes it important to understand the needs of a society with enhanced empathy, local and global, not only at the superficial, product or service level, but also considering its history, culture, education system and other elements. This can help researchers improve society in the long run.

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Technology 

It is easy to see the connection between technology and scientific research. Many times, research requires a certain technology to be developed, while technology, on the other hand, requires advanced research for its development. The two fields generate multiple interconnections and allow for a rich transfer of information.

The importance of international collaboration emerges most visibly at this boundary. The potential applications of a certain research project are dependent on the vision of the researchers, which is another aspect in which one can leverage international collaboration.

To allow the development of research technologies that can truly connect countries, researchers must seek out feedback from different stakeholders, including colleagues, friends and students, along with partnerships that connect research and technology.

The environment 

In a modern-day context, researchers have to deeply consider the impact and implications of their research on the environment as tackling issues such as global warming becomes of critical importance. 

Environmental issues we are facing today do not belong to a single nation or a single continent. They are global issues. Taking it one step further, one can imagine, using empathy, how one’s research can be used to improve situations in different places across the world. Only in doing so can a researcher understand the potential of their work’s impact. This is where international collaboration can truly reveal its value because researchers across borders can provide unique points of view, complementary to each other in many cases.

Researchers must work on their empathy by identifying opportunities for their research to be applied in countries far away from the one where research is being carried out.

The law

Researchers must also consider their research from various legal perspectives. They must be aware of possible legal issues related to copyright, purposes of use or even insufficiently defined rules and regulations due to the novelty of the research. Once again, international collaboration is necessary to visualise and align a variety of legal aspects with which researchers from a single country would be otherwise unfamiliar.

Researchers should take the time to learn about the legal aspects of international partnerships so that they can avoid serious issues in the long run. A good starting point is from the guidelines of the proposals they want to apply for, but it is only possible to gain a deeper understanding by discussing the experiences of other collaborators.

In short, international collaboration is essential in the era we are living in. Its impact and intricacies are very complex and difficult to capture all at once, and even more difficult to encapsulate into a single framework. However, I hope that this resource can serve as a good starting point to position you towards effective and impactful international collaboration.

Daniel Moraru is an associate professor at the Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Japan.

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