Challenges of Cross-Border Collaboration: Knowledge Networks for Innovation and Sustainability in the Global South

Abstract

Despite many efforts to describe and characterize collaborative research on complex problems, conditions for success are not yet rigorously grounded on actual cases (Podestá et~al. Environmental Science & Policy, 26, 40–48, 2012). To compensate this lack of empirical work on specific cases, the chapter describes insights gained during a study of collaboration in three international (US-Argentina) climate variability research projects where the authors were co-investigators. Conclusions arisen which illustrate the relevance of connectivity that foster or impede collaborative production of high-quality, useable knowledge, should be an essential component of projects involving scientists, practitioners and stakeholders. Mostly as they include participants with different nationalities and backgrounds who must collectively define a new set of shared principles, concepts and aims. Monitoring and reflection must also implicate institutions (planning and funding agencies, universities, research institutes, GOs and NGOs, etc.) which are currently rehearsing their first steps in such a complex type of collaboration. The chapter present observations from various stages of the projects and extract lessons that will contribute both to design “best practices” and metrics of success in different collaborative settings and to expose some underlying assumptions about how collaboration processes occur, one of the goals of this special volume.