Collaboration in a Multidisciplinary, Distributed Research Organization: A Case Study

Collaboration has become a main characteristic of academic research today. New forms of research organizations, colaboratories, have come to the fore, with distributed research centres as their most complex example. In this study, we aim to provide some insight into the collaboration strategies of researchers in their daily researching activities within a distributed research centre. More specifically, we wish to understand to what extent information and communication technologies facilitate collaboration within distributed research centres. We will do this by presenting the case of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT), a research organization active in Flanders, Belgium. The paper will draw from a qualitative-ethnographic study carried out within the 16 academic research groups that are part of IBBT. The discussed topics include the effects of the introduction of such a virtual collaborative organization, the internal organization of the research groups and the collaboration between these groups.