Collaboration is a proven pathway for innovation and impact. Australian companies who collaborated were found to be 70% more likely to achieve ‘creative innovation’ (O’Kane, 2008). Collaboration is not easy. Government funded projects often fail to achieve their desired impact, and many are simply ‘shelved’ once completed (Keast & Mandell, 2014).
The case being examined in this study is an Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) funded three year, multi-university, cross-disciplinary initiative established to improve science and mathematics education nationally.
Determining OLT project long-term impact has been limited relative to other government funded initiatives, as evaluation commonly ceases at the cessation of OLT funding.
To ensure value for public money in OLT projects, it is vital that funding bodies, and collaborators alike understand what is required to foster genuinely sustainable collaboration.
The aim of this study is to identify formal and informal mechanisms and structures that facilitate collaborative arrangements in order to examine long-term network sustainability for impact. Relationships are the focus because they are seen as central to the success of collaborative initiatives (Creech & Ramji 2004).
The evaluation takes a Complexity Theory approach, viewing the collaboration as a complex adaptive system (Patton 2010). Evaluation strategies are based in social network analysis, assessing relationship development across the macro (inter-organisational) and micro (inter-personal) levels at particular moments in time within IPML. A multidimensional longitudinal case study design has been adopted (Yin, 2013).
This study will deliver a theoretically grounded framework relevant to everyday practice, which can be utilised by stakeholders to assess and support collaboration.
Keast, R., & Mandell, M. (2014). The collaborative push: Moving beyond rhetoric and gaining evidence. Journal of Management and Governance, 18, 9-28.
O’Kane, M. (2008). Collaborating to a purpose: Review of the Cooperative Research Centres Program. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory: Commonwealth of Australia
Patton, M. Q. (2010). Developmental evaluation: Applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and use. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Yin, R., K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
