Reflections on a process model for international research collaboration in social work

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on knowledge and experiences gained from an International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES). Challenges and opportunities inherent in the development and management of a large-scale international research project in social work are explored. Through a synthesis of conceptual frameworks a process model for international research collaboration is constructed based chiefly on the stages of group development, a conceptual framework for cross-national research, an interdisciplinary teamwork process and collaborative knowledge building. The five stages of the process model, namely forming, norming, storming, performing and adjourning and associated steps are connected by a practice of reflexivity.

Keywords

Collaborative knowledge building conceptual framework interdisciplinary teamwork international social work research process model reflexivity

Introduction

The work reflected in this article was made possible by European Union funding under the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) which aims to fund and support the training and career development of researchers from the countries involved in the project. The IRSES enables researchers to establish long-term research collaborations through a coordinated staff exchange programme. Universities and research centres can take part in an IRSES project, and teams must include at least two participants in at least two different EU Member States or Associated Countries as well as one or more organizations located either in countries with which the EU has a science and technology cooperation agreement, or in countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy. Topics are funded from all areas of scientific and technological research that are of interest to the EU. A staff exchange programme can receive IRSES support for a period of 24–48 months (Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, 2013).

Already during the initial deliberations by scholars from the UK, South Africa, Finland, Italy, Russia and India towards the project proposal, it became evident, similar to the experience of Lombe et al. (2013), that data to help direct the process of international collaboration in social work research are limited. Thus, in order to develop large-scale international research collaborations we needed to assemble a credible research team who could demonstrate and maintain an international profile and reputation and who could deliver scholarly work of a high standard. However, we did not anticipate that the determinants for successful international research collaboration would include not only a strong team and scholarly outputs, but we also learned that to embark on a grounded process model for international research, effective collaboration is just as important.

This article seeks to reflect on the knowledge and experiences gained while running an IRSES project, thus demonstrating the challenges and opportunities for developing and managing a large-scale international research project in social work, in order to create a process model for international research collaboration. This particular IRSES project was a response to support the aims of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development (International Federation of Social Workers, International Association of Schools of Social Work and International Council on Social Welfare, 2010) with the aim to promote social and economic equality; and ‘to strengthen the profile and visibility of social work, to develop new partnerships to boost the confidence of social workers to make a stronger contribution to policy development’ (Jones and Truell, 2012: 455–6).

This response was however not without controversy. Koro-Ljungberg (2012) points out that the diminishing budgets allocated to higher education had exerted pressure on administrators towards financially driven decision-making, demanding effective and grounded perceptions of research, and which should be fast and risk free. These sterile research models are often favoured over large-scale international research collaborations, which usually envisage collaborative knowledge building of its team members as a supplementary goal. Within this context we experienced that researchers are sometimes bound to shape their research methodology to meet their home institutions’ financial considerations or a funding unit’s priorities as research processes and the management thereof are to be mastered quickly, with the result that research in social work is often of limited scope and country or region specific.

Conversely, Midgley (2008) asserts that the global expansion of social work over the past century owes much to international exchanges and that international social work is increasingly regarded as a mainstream activity. He also points to the notion that reciprocity is nowadays (as opposed to past professional imperialism from the global North to South) more widely understood and respected, resulting in a greater awareness that international exchanges in social work should be based on a careful assessment of the nature of the exchanges and an understanding of the needs of the partners. However, Midgley’s comments fall within the context of academic exchanges in terms of curricula, students and faculty and do not necessarily and specifically refer to large-scale research collaborations. Accordingly, Gardner et al. (2012: 253) emphasized that we should extend our professional visions beyond our national borders in an increasingly globalized world by means of research ‘aimed to examine and compare a particular issue or phenomena across two or more countries where culture, either explicitly or implicitly, is understood to play a role’. Jung and Tripodi (2007) also referred to situations where problems are shared across national borders and where collaboration is needed to understand and address these issues.

The reported benefits of these international research projects include the re-evaluation of specific country data, the development of new and exciting insights and deeper understanding of global issues (National Research Council, 2001). These benefits may never be uncovered in single-nation research (Kohn, 1987) and therefore international research collaboration is imperative to social work in its efforts to give voice to the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development.

Despite the benefits of international research collaborations, scholars report a process riddled with challenges, which may include obstacles in funding, language difficulties and methodological problems (Gardner et al., 2012; Lombe et al., 2013). This is ascribed to the fact that typically only the findings of international research are disseminated. Much less has been written about the processes guiding these international research collaborations, such as the discussion by Brydon et al. (2012) regarding their partnership approach towards the development of international social work education collaborations. Evidence from management literature (McCallin, 2001) furthermore suggests that to simply form a research team does not guarantee desired research outcomes – the process of managing the research is equally important. In order to manage this international research collaboration and motivated by the postulation of Singh et al. (2007: 85) on the lack of explanation and a cohesive theory regarding the underlying processes involved in collaborative knowledge building, we as members of the IRSES research team actively embarked on a search for a theoretically grounded process model to guide us in a way that would be easy to comprehend, that would be user friendly in deliberations and that could be replicated in other international research collaboration projects.

Through a synthesis of conceptual frameworks, the team constructed a process model for international research collaboration consisting of five stages, based mainly on the stages of group development, originally proposed by Tuckman (1965) and Tuckman and Jensen (1977), a conceptual framework for a cross-national research model presented by Gardner et al. (2012), an interdisciplinary teamwork process expounded by Drinka and Clark (2000), and the practice of reflexivity in cross-cultural collaborative research as elucidated by Easterby-Smith and Malina (1999). Throughout the process model the stages (forming, norming, storming, performing and adjourning) and associated steps are connected by a practice of reflexivity, which served as the glue to bind the process into a meaningful and coherent whole as it became evident that some of the stages and steps run parallel to each other and not always in sequence, and that some are more time-consuming than others.

For instance, we deliberately commenced with a norming stage to precede a storming stage in the sequence of the process model, which is the other way round in Tuckman’s (1965) original developmental sequence in small groups. Our rationale was that we wanted to establish group values and ground rules through team building, before determining theoretical perspectives and the development of a framework for integrative collaborative knowledge building. Hence, norming was a particular and identifiable stage in the process, but also integrated in the operationalizing of consecutive stages.

The reflexivity between various stages of the process was formally operationalized by means of reflective reports compiled by each team member after attending a project symposium or an individual secondment to a participating country, and then posted to the project’s electronic repository. The reflective reports have to conform to a set framework with some aspects devoted to reflection on the research process. In addition, the agendas of team symposia also incorporated a structured evaluation of the various stages of the process model, which was captured in minutes and distributed to all members.

Figure 1 is a graphical exposition of our process model for international research collaboration and will be explained subsequently.

Figure 1.

A process model for international research collaboration in social work (adapted from Gardner et al., 2012).

Forming

Considerable time was spent on the formation of the research team, creating a common vision and reaching agreement about its various aspects. The success of this phase demanded established leadership skills from the Primary Investigator (PI) and courage from potential team members.

Establishing a team

The initial envisioning of the project emanated from networking between the Department of Social and Community Studies, Coventry University (UK) and the Department of Social Work, Stellenbosch University (RSA) both of whom obtained modest research funding and delivered joint publications. The scope of the research topic, which focused on neoliberalism, public health and social work was developed further and directed by Coventry University who had sought to establish international partnerships with a number of EU and non-EU countries and engaged them in the development of an EU Marie Curie IRSES bid. Through additional international EU staff exchange funding, relationships were developed with Calabria University (Italy) and Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland), which in turn fostered new links with Saint Petersburg State University (Russia) and Loyola University (India). These institutions and individual research members were representative of different geographical, economic, cultural and professional contexts, diverse research experiences and expertise, and were committed to a partnership of equals – qualities that provided the catalyst to bring together different fields of knowledge and skills, drawing together best practices and varied socio-political and ideological frameworks. The team whilst consisting mostly of social work academics also included academics in economics and education at various stages in their careers, adding to the diversity and varying perspectives.

One of the main determinants for inclusion in the research team was a shared passion and interest in the research topic. In this regard Gardner et al. (2012) suggest that enthusiasm for the subject matter is an all-important criterion for inclusion in a collaborative team. This is substantiated by the fact that international research is costly, time-consuming and complicated – all aspects that may foster frustration and anxiety in the participants, their home institutions, faculties, departments and colleagues alike. Dedication to the research topic was thus a key determinant to enhance the productivity of the research team, but we soon learned that the success of the project was dependent not only on the capabilities of the participating research team, but also on the efficacy of broader university administration systems and structures (for example, the timely payment of allowances and expenses), posing numerous challenges to the sustainability of the project.

In order to fit the requirements of the funder, we also discovered that the work arrangements for this project were complex; countries were paired in work packages and participants had to undertake a large proportion of their work in these groupings before coming together at symposiums to share the work done to date. In reality though, the individuals in the work packages could not always work as a group, and tasks were divided. Occasionally members of a work package would meet with members from other work packages to complete their work. This means that there were numerous groupings taking place throughout the duration of the project in addition to individual tasks yielding a complex matrix of amassed knowledge that had to be managed.

Compiling an inventory of individual team members

In the course of establishing the team, the proper recognition and valuing of differences and diversity in academic experiences and contributions was important. The involvement of various academics from six different countries, with their different cultures, styles of working and research experience and traditions, highlighted the divergence in the team and the different approaches to power, bureaucracy, decision-making and legacies such as colonialization. This is certainly not the first cross-cultural and cross-national research team to have to clear such hurdles, but the manner in which the differences become evident, seems to be unique to every project. The characteristics of this particular team which had to be accommodated, included: historical legacies and stereotypes; power imbalances caused by being a ‘leading’ country responsible for project management, and differences arising from whether a country had initially one or more researchers involved in the project; varying motivations and levels of commitment to the project; and differing parameters of support from the researchers’ institutions of employment. These were in addition to the assorted attributes and styles of the individual researchers.

In response to Gardner et al.’s (2012) emphasis on the importance of an inventory of individual researchers’ methodological strengths and epistemological positioning, the team had to present their CVs and also had the opportunity to complete a template mapping their methodological strengths and epistemological positioning and challenges. However, echoing Gardner et al.’s (2012) observation, the team’s enthusiasm and commitment to equal participation by all members hampered the utilization of the completed skills inventories, which lessened capitalizing on members’ strengths and made the team more vulnerable to epistemological differences during the course of the research process.

Establishing a project goal and research objectives

The aim of the project was to explore the impact of neoliberalism on public health, social work practice and vulnerable population groups. Neoliberalism within the ambit of the project refers to international economic frameworks that support social, cultural and political policies and practices that promote the management of services through the belief in free markets (Harvey, 2010). This research goal was to be reached by seeking to understand social work practices and training in each of the six consortium countries. Of critical importance to the formulation of the project’s research goal was the fit with the research objectives of team members’ home universities, faculties, departments and individual research areas, as a poor fit on any level could be detrimental to the sustainability of the project. This could prevent team members’ complete participation and had to be verified specifically before the commencement of the project and the signing of contractual agreements.

Establishing a research methodology

A relatively straightforward research methodology was introduced, which would not add to the complexity of the collaboration process. Therefore an inductive exploration of academic and social welfare agency perspectives on the topic was employed, without having to collect primary data directly from vulnerable groups (this would be undertaken in subsequent research bids accompanied by appropriate ethical clearance procedures). Secondary analyses were thus used as an approach for data collection, involving a reworking of already analysed data over which the present researchers had no direct control or involvement (De Vos et al., 2005). This methodology to make cross-national comparisons allowed for richness of data (Teagarden et al., 1995) but posed a dilemma of how to develop robust and rigorous systems for the actual development and analysis of knowledge. Therefore the research was undertaken through the use of individual researcher visits and team symposium events, with funding made available for participants from EU countries to visit non-EU countries and vice versa for the 36-month duration of the project. Observational visits, documentary exploration and critical discussions during these visits and events provided the contexts and insights that were necessary to assess the findings in terms of validity, credibility, conformability, transferability and reliability (De Vos et al., 2005).

However, one of the challenges of working as a team was how to move forward simultaneously in the same direction while working apart in different countries, and ensuring that all members of the team have a shared knowledge and understanding of the same data and findings of the project as these emerged. This challenge is relatively simple when working with quantitative data but not so within a collaborative research process where iterative processes cannot be replicated. A linear positivistic approach (Teagarden et al., 1995) does not take account of contexts which can be a key factor in international comparative research and which play a decisive role in the analyses of data. Therefore face-to-face meetings, where all members of the research team could be present, were deemed necessary.

Launching the project at a first team meeting

The project’s successful funding bid resulted in the start-up of the project at which all partners were in attendance. This was the first time that most participants had met one another and as a result the initial stage required the sharing and understanding of cross-cultural and cross-national perspectives and the exploration of the research concepts in different languages. This was undertaken through a series of presentations, discussions, and structured and unstructured activities.

As was to be expected from a diverse group of academics from a variety of institutions everybody approached the first meeting with a personal agenda, revealing differences in commitment and understanding of the proposed research topic. This was exacerbated by the fact that funding extended only to providing the researchers’ home institution with a set amount to enable travel. Therefore the home institutions of the research team had to be convinced that the release of their staff for the time spent on the project would constitute an investment in staff and research development, and that an additional spin-off could be that other research networks might be developed which could provide benefits to both the researcher and the home institution.

Already at the first meeting in the form of a symposium, it was evident that the strengths of the project in terms of diversity were also potentially its greatest challenge. The diversity of the researchers brought together a wealth of experience and knowledge. Mirroring the experience of Gardner et al. (2012) it however also presented a challenge to find common ground on which to establish an effective working team. Whilst the first symposium had been a successful introduction to the project it gradually became clear in the months following that as the group had dispersed to begin working in smaller work package groups, divergent practices (owing to researchers’ main assignments at their home universities) could threaten the drive and coherence of the project. These individual and institutional obligations also needed to be balanced against the promises made to the funder (EU) in respect of the funding and project outcomes expected and to the research team. Hence, the team learned that an initial incubation period was needed, during which individual researchers had to seek a new research identity within a common destiny for the project, which could be shared with all and to which all were committed. This was reinforced through the use of publicity surrounding the research in the home institutions.

Creating communication tools and technology

Working towards a common destiny, the team found one of the biggest challenges to be the creation of user friendly communication tools and technology. Initially all electronic communication was done via email and Skype, but the need for a repository to store and share documents such as reports, agendas and minutes, literature, and travel plans arose. Various platforms were explored and Microsoft SkyDrive was found usable as it offers free cloud storage that is accessible everywhere. Another platform, Mendeley, was also found useful as it is a free reference manager and academic social network with applications such as automatically generated bibliographies and the importation of papers from other research software. These platforms were deemed vital and a prerequisite for any international research collaboration, especially as tools to synchronize and display dates for individual research visits and symposiums, provide time gaps for online communication and to distribute and preserve documents important for the sustainability of the project. However, these technological communication tools have less value, if all research contacts, especially meetings, are not guided by an agenda and captured in applicable minutes. The research team soon learned that these formed the backbone of the process, something that should be managed with precision and care.

Whilst these communication strategies and tools were useful in the project, setting up such processes was an ongoing challenge in collaborations amongst the project partners owing to the instability of internet access. The team experienced that internet access is not always simply insufficient in developing countries, but some internet service providers of universities in developed countries were also unreliable. The use of private internet service providers for team members’ own expense was sometimes the only option in order to sustain the project communication and to share information.

Norming

To achieve the research task, distinct procedures and protocols had to be developed which could only be established by means of shared values and ground rules as part of team building.

Establishing values, ground rules and team building

Recognition of differences in strategies, goals and ambitions of team members’ universities, of their home faculty and/or departments, and of their own as well as those of the funder, required a fine balancing act by individual team members, specifically in terms of their normal daily academic programmes. Moreover, team members had to understand one another’s work culture, practices and expectations while seeking to offset those against knowledge and skill development, project delivery and dissemination. Therefore, ground rules had to be established before the team could start to develop positive working relationships. However, initially the focus was on tasks: what the researchers needed to do and how they were going to do it, rather than on the processes. In this way, the group initially skipped the norming phase of the process, revealing their anxiety to show tangible results. It could be argued that this also reflected a shift towards greater accountability and outputs, ironically the very issues that the project was funded to investigate. As a result the project team had to retrace their steps, ensuring a much deeper understanding of one another’s experiences and expectations.

This reconsideration was undertaken expressly by the group before the end of the first symposium in which members expressed commitment to the principles of equity, equality, shared destiny and to the project. Team members also committed themselves to social work virtues (Pullen-Sansfaçon and Cowden, 2012), such as respect for each other’s’ values and views, even when these differed from individual beliefs or personal experiences of similar situations; trustworthiness, which includes honesty, reliability, responsibility and credibility in the execution of research assignments and which is necessary for open communication; criticality, which entails a constant engagement in reflection, and the ability to reassess own judgments, in particular the structural analysis of observations; and courage to carry through the project tasks and team decisions, as the unresponsiveness of one team member could potentially affect the rest of the team. These virtues could be operationalized only if team members were taking ownership of the project, combined with the sharing of creative initiatives.

However, similar to Gardner et al.’s (2012) report was the experience that it is easy for an individual in collaborating teams to assume that someone else is taking the lead and to feel less pressured by upcoming deadlines. When face-to-face meetings were not possible, there was a tendency to compromise more and challenge less. Therefore, the affirmation of the project’s values was a continuous endeavour. Part of the team building process was therefore to obtain group permission on technical and personal aspects of the project. This process was similar to what political scientists might call delegated power (Lupia, 2001) although in a team of equals this delegation is not so much about researchers being asked to undertake tasks on behalf of others, but about the process of seeking mutual understanding of boundaries, group processes, requirements and deliverables.

Storming

The teambuilding process culminated in a more detailed understanding of research tasks and of how they could be achieved. A greater challenge though was to gain a shared language for these tasks, a journey the group has embarked upon. Language is, according to Vygotsky (1978) the tool of tools and whilst other formats might enhance our understanding, language is critical to knowledge building. Team members, for instance, presented at the launching of the project a critical oral analysis of their countries’ cultural and socio-political biographies followed by intense discussions and references to literature and documents to help gain a general understanding of contexts. Stahl (2000) perceives this journey as a socio-cultural process with synergistic moments when shared knowledge develops. An example of a synergistic moment was when the team discovered during deliberations that the concept of vulnerability has profound differences within the team members’ socio-cultural contexts and a specific work package of the project was purposefully dedicated to conceptualize this concept within the participating countries’ environments. This shared understanding was vital to the rigour of the project and the best way to address this was to dedicate structured time to the discussion, negotiation and grounding of terminology. This grounding of terminology within a specific theoretical perspective helped the team to develop a shared language.

Determining theoretical perspectives

Every helping profession needs a frame of reference to view situations and contexts they are concerned with. Based on the seminal postulations of Pincus and Minahan (1973: 8), Bronfenbrenner (1977) and Germain and Gitterman (1995, 1996), an ecological perspective provides a framework for the analyses of interactions on a global level, between nations, organizations and individuals. Human ecology is considered as the mutual accommodation of the person and his/her immediate changing environment for the duration of his/her life.

The ecological perspective thus offered a useful cognitive framework for the research team within which to understand the realities of social work practice. Moreover, the ecological perspective offers the language, holistic view and concepts to understand the complex relationships between people and their environments (Germain and Gitterman, 1995); and provides the opportunity for collaborative knowledge building across nations to view people and their environments as a unit within their unique cultural and historical context. The analyses of research data in terms of the ecological systems (exo, macro, meso and micro) (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Germain and Gitterman, 1996) were specifically helpful towards the understanding of the research matter and to ultimately map the research data.

Developing a framework for integrative collaborative knowledge building

The team’s acceptance of the ecological systems perspective as theoretical point of departure also created the awareness of a theoretically founded framework for collaborative knowledge building, which undergirds the research project. The work of Singh et al. (2007) on Collaborative Knowledge Building (CKB) (see also Stahl, 2000), was particularly useful in this regard. The authors constructed a process to address the problems inherent in moving from individual understanding to group understanding. It recognizes that an individual’s personal understanding is a reflection of his/her own beliefs, knowledge and experience which are translated into statements made in public. By working collaboratively a shared understanding in the team could emerge which in turn impacted on the individual’s understanding. Key to this process are the changes that take place in order to move from individual to shared understanding (Whymark and Hawkins, 2006). This process was captured and its components preserved as artefacts (conceptual and/or written) that can be examined and improved through public discourse (Singh et al., 2007). The artefacts are the result of reflective thinking, which can be described as an active thinking process for monitoring one’s own learning process in order to instil conceptual change. Engaging in reflective thinking within the context of the project, implies explicating tacit knowledge, internalizing newly acquired knowledge, and facilitating knowledge construction. Similarly, as Singh et al. (2007: 92) described in an exposition of a case study on CKB, the engagement in reflective thinking also guides the research team towards ‘writing questions’. These questions were based on the distinct systems of the ecological perspective and helped the research team to demarcate the research topic within each work package.

Performing

With the theoretical perspective and framework for collaborative knowledge building in place the team was ready to start the research activities. The first task was to perform a concept analysis of neoliberalism – a concept that is key to the project.

Concept analysis

According to Rodgers (1989) concepts play an important part in the development of knowledge as concepts promote the organization of experience, facilitate communication among individuals and enable the cognitive recall thereof. For this reason the research team deemed it necessary to construct a concept analysis according to a specific process; it has been argued that concept analysis is the first stage of theory development (Walker and Avant, 1995). Social constructionism has been used more extensively in social work and shows some similarities with concept analysis, such as analysis of the discourses which have contributed to the current accepted way to approach a phenomenon (Burr, 2003).

Rodgers (1989) points to two established views of what constitutes a concept. The entity school of thought is that a concept is a thing, a form or an element that exists, while the dispositional view is that it is a habit or ability to perform certain behaviours. The research team found neither approach to be the ideal as the entity approach is reductionist in nature and once defined the concept remains fixed within that definition, unable to change through time or across contexts, while the dispositional approach has been criticized for being vague and ambiguous, lacking the scientific certainty of the entity view. This impasse was addressed by members of the research team by adopting Rodgers’s (1989) third view of concepts, namely the evolutionary view, which holds that concepts do change and whatever influences their development is significant. This third approach allowed the team members to view neoliberalism as remaining static at certain points in history, as well as evolving, as it is adopted within different contexts.

As suggested by Chinn and Kramer (1999) one of the important aspects of concept analysis is to identify what the concept is not. This is of critical importance to ensure clarity and avoid confusion with similar and related concepts. Identifying references, antecedents and consequences is also a means of clarification by considering the scope of the concept, what has led to the concept’s emergence and what has happened as a consequence of its existence.

Integrative review

The process of concept analysis directed the research team to review applicable sources for data, and specifically to an integrative review as grounded methodological strategy, in order to enhance the rigour of the research process. This was an effort to synthesize findings from discrete primary studies and to increase the generalizability of data about neoliberalism as phenomenon. As this research approach was defined as secondary analysis (De Vos et al., 2005), the literature review may be considered as research into research and should therefore meet the same rigorous methodological standards as primary research. The integrative review of neoliberalism suited the project best and was employed according to an adapted five-stage process as expounded by Whittemore and Knafl (2005):

- The impact of neoliberalism on social work and vulnerable populations was expressed as part of the problem formulation in the project proposal.

- A literature search as data collection, drawn from a purposive sampling of literature sources with distinct criteria for inclusion was envisioned, but because of issues such as language difficulties and unavailability of literature, sampling decisions on what literature data to use were based mainly on availability and posed a limitation in terms of credibility.

- The authenticity, methodological quality, informational value and representativeness of data were examined when research findings were disseminated as part of the scholarly presentation.

- Data were ordered, categorized and summarized in terms of various frameworks and matrixes in different work packages and then displayed in order to identify comparisons, patterns, themes, variations and relationships. When new conceptualizations emerged as the result of a synthesis of the collected data, the review process was concluded to be exhausted.

- It is envisioned that conclusions of the integrative reviews are being reported, capturing the depth and breadth of the topic in order to contribute to a new understanding of the impact of neoliberalism on social work in different countries and contexts, the implications for practice, policy initiatives and further research. This final stage of the integrative review links directly with the final stage of the research process model, which will be discussed next.

Adjourning

The adjourning stage of the process entails reflection, the completion of the research, the evaluation thereof and the possible transfer to a next project.

Producing artefacts

An essential aspect of collaborative knowledge building is the recording of the process. Singh et al.’s (2007) CKB model recognizes the importance of artefacts to make the knowledge public and this has been adopted by the project team through a commitment by each work package to produce a journal and/or conference paper at each symposium and for individual team members to report according to a specific format after each international visit. The written word is however a one-dimensional record, and is open to different interpretations, particularly within a cross-cultural context (Mangen, 1999). Therefore, the project team was tasked with implementing a wider range of recording mechanisms such as photographic and video artefacts.

Dissemination

Dissemination is an ongoing process and includes journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, feedback and sharing of experiences to home institutions and teams of learning, press releases and the use of material in student teaching. The hosting of project webinars (interactive web-based seminars, which can be accessed in real time) by the participating team members and invited audiences was found to be a cost-effective and exceptionally powerful tool for dissemination of research findings. However, the creation of a unique project web site, hosting all the various dissemination efforts, would be the ultimate goal. Unfortunately the funding of this project did not cover dissemination costs. Nevertheless, the added value of disseminating this process model for international research collaboration was demonstrated in that the team members were empowered to work deliberately towards future international research collaborations and to share their gained knowledge and skills such as bid writing and project management with colleagues at their home institutions.

Conclusion

Despite the advantages of the employment of this process model for international research collaboration, several challenges remain. How to manage competing demands of an international research team within the expectations of the funder and how to align differences in competencies, academic cultures, personal and institutional expectations are still problematic. Also, to develop and motivate the research team and stay committed to a team goal as they have only a personal commitment to one another; and to enable team members to work outside the parameters of a traditional line management system and structure are constant objectives to strive for. However, one of the biggest challenges to emerge was how to demonstrate the added value of involvement in the research to home institutions, academic teams and colleagues, especially in the early stages of the project, which takes up considerable time (see also Gardner et al., 2012) as proof of publications, outcomes and deliveries are not instantly evident.

Hence, the key conclusion deriving from this project is that active involvement of social work academics in international research collaborations and their lived experiences of the different stages of the process model as expounded in this article should be progressively required of them to be relevant within a local practice context. This involvement in international research collaborations is articulated in the assertion of Jones and Truell (2012: 436): ‘making the linkages to support the people we work with or making the linkages to bring global change that will affect local change is now part of the social work job description’. Nevertheless, despite the numerous challenges of large-scale international research collaborations as highlighted in the article, we believe that our execution of the process model as reflected on in this article contributes to actualizing the thrust of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development. Our reflections thus ultimately echo the sentiment of Midgley (2008: 45), that ‘by sharing the intellectual and practice wisdom that has emerged around the world, social work will be enriched and its commitment to addressing injustice and oppression will be enhanced’.

Footnotes

Funding

This team research was made possible by the support of a Marie Curie Action: International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (contract no. 295203: EU FP7-PEOPLE-IRSES, NL_SOCIAL) and co-funding by the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST/CON 0121/2012) for South African partners.

Author biographies

Lambert Engelbrecht, DPhil, to whom correspondence should be addressed, is an Associated Professor at the Department of Social Work, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Gary Spolander, Principal Lecturer, Social and Health Care Management, Coventry University, United Kingdom.

Linda Martin, Course Director, Social and Health Care Management, Coventry University, United Kingdom.

Marianne Strydom, PhD, lecturer, Department of Social Work, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Francis Adaikalam, Assistant Professor in Social Work, Loyola College, Chennai, India.

Päivi Marjanen, PhD, Principle lecturer, Development Manager, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Hyvinkää, Finland.

Irina Pervova (Ирина Первова), PhD, Professor, Saint Petersburg State University, Russia.

Alessandro Sicora, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Political Science, University of Calabria, Italy.

Petri Tani, TtM, eMBA, M.Sc. (Social and Health Care Management and Economics) Senior Lecturer, Business and Administration, Social and Health Care Services, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Hyvinkää, Finland.

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