Design and the management of multi-institutional research collaborations: Theoretical implications from two case studies

Elizabeth Corley, P. Craig Boardman, Barry Bozeman

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    137 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Over the past three decades, U.S. science and technology funding agencies have increasingly supported large-scale, centralized, block grant-based research projects that often span multiple disciplines and institutions. This trend has developed at such a rate that research focused on understanding the management of these new collaborative models has largely not kept pace. We use two case studies of large-scale, multi-disciplinary collaborations to develop an institutional framework that illuminates the relationships among (a) the epistemic norms of the disciplines represented in the collaboration, (b) the organizational structure of these collaborations, and (c) the inter-institutional collaboration success. The results of our case study analysis demonstrate that large-scale, multi-discipline, inter-institutional collaborations need a relatively high level of development in either (1) the epistemic development of the disciplines involved in the collaboration or (2) the organizational structure of the collaboration. We argue that the domain (i.e. epistemic or organizational) that provides the highest level of institutionalization is the one that organizes the "rules" of the collaboration.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)975-993
    Number of pages19
    JournalResearch Policy
    Volume35
    Issue number7
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Sep 2006

    Keywords

    • Epistemic norms
    • Inter-institutional collaboration
    • Interdisciplinary science collaboration
    • Organizational structure

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Strategy and Management
    • Management Science and Operations Research
    • Management of Technology and Innovation

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