Excellence Everywhere - National University of Ireland, Galway

other types of interpersonal relationships, has nofixed rules. However, there are some guidelinesyou can follow to ensure that the collaborationstarts off on the right foot and proceeds smoothly(see “Personal Qualities of a Good Collaborator,”page 153).Approaching aPotential CollaboratorOnce you have identified a potential collaboratorand decided that you want to go forward, developan outline of your proposal for the joint project.Define in detail how you think you can complementeach other’s efforts.Send an Email. Make your initial contact with aninquiry designed to whet the other person’s appetite.Send a short email describing your researchin general terms and asking for the opportunityfor a conversation. Do not call on the telephonefirst—you do not want to put the person on thespot, and you do want to give him or her a chanceto find out more about you through personalcontacts or your scientific publications. It is a goodidea to use an informative email subject header,for example Understanding drug resistance invivax malaria, rather than an empty subject lineor one that could be mistaken for a scam, such asHelp a young professor.Many people have set up their spam filters todelete mail coming from hotmail.com and otherpopular free web mail services. These filters rarelygive you any notice that your message has notgone to the intended reader.In your email, focus on the big picture and conveyyour enthusiasm. You must convince your potentialcollaborator that:n You have the expertise you claim.n You believe that he or she is the best possiblecollaborator for the project at hand.n Both of you stand to benefit from the collaboration.n The whole is indeed greater than the sum of theparts.Sometimes people will not acknowledge unwantedemails, so you may not hear back from a researcherwith whom you want to work. If that happens,following up with a paper letter may encourageyour potential collaborator to respond. Rememberto include your email address in any paper lettersyou may send.Some countries have become so associatedwith dishonest money-raising scams that it maybe difficult to get people to read any email orpaper notes coming from them. If you are in oneof those places, you can enhance your note’schances of being read if you get to the pointquickly. A letter, printed on university letterhead,that begins…Dear Dr. Jones,Your recent papers on the evolution of virulencein African trypanosomes suggest an interestingparallel with a phenomenon I have observed in mylaboratory’s work on seasonal occurrences ofleishmaniasis.…is more likely to be read than one that beginswith elaborate flattery, or comes in a handwrittenenvelope, or is typed on lightweight airmail paper.Be Informed. To make your pitch effective, youneed to be familiar with your potential collaborator’swork. Be sure to read the lab’s published papers.You will also need to have a clear idea of what youwant to do and the respective role each of you willplay.Your email should lead to telephone conversations.After that, a trip to your collaborator’s lab for aface-to-face meeting is often worthwhile, and youshould both look for opportunities to get together.The Collaboration AgreementUsing an Informal Agreement. An exchange ofemails is usually sufficient to get a project underway. Before you actually start the work, however,it is best to develop and agree on a detailed writtensummary of your joint research plan. The planshould spell out:n The purpose of the collaboration.n The scope of work.n How, when, and in what format raw data willbe shared.collaboration149