Researching the researchers: communication and communication effectiveness in an international project

Title	Researching the researchers: communication and communication effectiveness in an international project
Author(s)	Alexia Pigeault & Fabiana Li
Format	Essay
Anticipated length	4000 Words
Synopsis	Have you ever wondered how communication happens in a research team, and how it happens when researchers have to collaborate internationally with other peers? This essay focuses on communication in the international project "Dried Fish Matters” (DFM) and offers lessons on effective communication in the context of interdisciplinary research and development projects. For this study, we looked at internal and external communication in DFM and examined the possible factors influencing communication. Based on a survey, interviews, and observation during meetings, our findings show that open-mindedness, frequent communications, and transparency are all key influencing factors that can be seen as requirements for effective communications. There are also other factors that shape communication, such as having the same definition of communication; social relationships between colleagues; the type of hierarchy in the project and in research teams; cultural differences; interdisciplinarity; personality traits; the number of languages spoken; new technologies; management issues; Global South challenges; the outcomes of the dissemination plan; and people’s thoughts on a project. An important lesson from the study is that self-analysis and introspection can help a team of researchers to work toward better communication and project outputs.