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2004

 

The ‘Collaborative Project’ carried out a UK survey of researchers, to explore the topic and nature of collaborative research. 37 projects were categorised and invited to participate in follow-up telephone interviews. This qualitative data revealed the nature and extent of collaboration as experienced by those ‘professional’ and ‘service user’ researchers involved.

This presentation will draw on research data from the survey, telephone interviews of both; and from analysis of reflective conversations between the original co-researchers AH and JJ.

This presentation will cover the conference theme of ‘undertaking research’. The current co-researchers (AH and AJ) have experienced a range of organisational and personal issues that have impacted on the process and product of collaborative research, despite our best intentions. The organisational issues are around the original researcher leaving, an extended time-lapse between stages of the project, inadequate support for the service user researcher (AH) and issues of ‘uncertainty’ in the process. However, this two-year project has provided us with many rich insights into the reality of the collaborative endeavour.

The issues we want to raise for discussion are to what extent are the successes of collaborative research fairytales’? And how best can we make sense of the perceived failures’ ?

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