Enabling collaboration and building capacity through research networks

Conducting research that can meaningfully impact on complex policy issues increasingly requires convening and managing a wide network of relationships across diverse disciplines, sectors and geographies. This chapter is about the nuts and bolts that build good networks as part of a research grant. Key players in the core team of a modern collaborative research grant include not only include the academic investigators, and their vital expertise, but also often members of a growing body of specialist specialist professional services colleagues who have the capabilities to manage complex networks and span boundaries. The authors draw on their experience of supporting collaborative research grants and knowledge exchange initiatives to share what we wish we knew about when we started out working on large collaborative research projects.