The CINHEKS Comparative Survey: Emerging Design, Findings, and the Art of Mending Fractured Vessels

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. Adhering to the CINHEKS premise that there is much to be learned from how researchers negotiate methodological and conceptual challenges, the first part of the chapter describes the evolution of the third and final stage of a sequential mixed-methods study: the large-scale, mixed-methods international survey. Our discussion focuses on the elements of continuity and disruption (“fractures”) that contributed to the design and implementation of the survey. We examine the crucial role that these fractures played in shaping the final focus and format of the hybrid survey, which introduced an innovative use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore patterns of collaboration between academics and external partners in US, the UK, Finland, and Portugal across career stages. The unique survey design unveiled an aspect of academic collaborations not considered in the university-industry literature: the “bridge-function” played by early career researchers (ECRs), that is, the role that ECRs such as postdocs and adjuncts play in brokering partnerships with external entities. In the discussion section, we explain how this bridge-building function belies the changing nature of academic work worldwide, where contractual and temporary staff may now be invisibly becoming responsible for much of the partnering work usually associated with tenure-track or equivalent faculty, but obtaining little credit for this work. The conclusion bring both parts of the chapter together by discussing the structural invisibility of ECRs in CINHEKS itself, and provides recommendations for future international collaboration research, especially the case of inter-generational research teams.