Playing Well With Others

In The Scientist, PNNL's Steven Wiley writes that collaborations are becoming increasingly necessary but that setting a good collaboration up can be difficult. "Sharing the same scientific goal is essential for a collaboration, but it is also what makes collaborations so difficult to establish," he writes, as people with the same research goals and expertise are often you competitors and those with different areas of expertise often have different goals. But, he says, it is worth it. "I have found most of my collaborators at small scientific meetings, where it is easiest to identify a scientist’s true interest and establish the trust that collaborations require," he says. "You must also be willing to share credit for your ideas. Like any relationship, collaborations take time and energy. Still, there is nothing that can accelerate your research faster or expand your intellectual horizons more."