This blog post is going to be a part of a mini series focusing on collaboration and the PhD experience drawing on excerpts from a book that I wrote with my dear colleague, Janet Salmons, last year called Reframing and Rethinking Collaboration in Higher Education and Beyond. My intention is to set up a mini series of excerpts from the book where I link into wellbeing and self-care where a bit of theory is shared and an activity is made available for you. Some elements of the posts will be direct excerpts and samples from the book and other parts I’ll curate for you. You can connect with part 1 here and part 2 here.

Collaborating Up, Across and Passing It On

Relationships are key to our wellbeing. As we noted in Chapter 2, they are fundamental for connecting to meaning and offer much in the way of support. They are also crucial to our self-care routines and our why. As a doctoral student you will experience many levels of relationships that come with collaboration - for example, supervision, committees, peers, industry partnerships, etc. In higher education relationships are a key often connected to mentoring (official or unofficial) and in ways that are between individuals across different academic levels. Thus, creating opportunities for connection that scaffold our personal and professional growth. In this way relationships can scaffold our learning and growth through (Ambler, Harvey & Cahir, 2016):

● Supporting personal development and professional enhancement;

● Improving research, professional learning and/or teaching;

● Engaging in self-reflection; and

● Encouraging new ways of thinking.

How this can look for each of us can be different. By connecting to our discipline, skills development, strengths, and emotional needs we can identify who we may connect with to support our learning and growth professionally. Table 3.2 offers some triggers to think about this in how you could approach your relationships and what they can offer you, with an awareness that not one person can do all of these things (i.e. one supervisor), rather you can put together a collection of people to assist you (i.e.: supervision team, post-doctoral team, peers, others in your field).

Table 3.2. Approaches to relationship support and needs

Let's have a look at some common collaborations as a doctoral student and the way the relationship can be crafted.

Collaborating up

It would be not uncommon for most of you as doctoral and early career researchers to experience mentorship from your thesis supervisor(s). It is often our first connection point to mentoring in higher education. Some of us expect mentoring and others do not. We acknowledge this can look different for everyone, and may indeed not be present for some of you, but more commonly than not the first experience of co-writing or co-researching is with your supervision team. This is a relationship we frame as collaborating up. This is also where you need to be able to acknowledge you are in a power relationship and as such there can be some awkward moments, especially if things go pear shaped. But they don’t have to be like this. Some of the most significant relationships and mentorships can come across are from the navigation and mutual respect underpinned by being open and establishing protocols. What can seem as a moment of tension, when approached with an awareness, openness and curiosity can build a way of working and a solid relationship. This time of your professional academic development is significant also as it can set you up for good practices, and ability to produce to meet your key milestones but also contribute to the research community and your disciplines or portfolio of work. Collaborating up requires you to consciously plan for, engage in, and be active while embracing learning from those who are more experienced. Think about:

● How do you want to work with your supervisor?

● What can you learn from collaborating up?

● What protocols may you need to negotiate and put in place?

● What are your intentions when you meet met with your supervisor?

As you move through doctoral stage to early career researcher or if you are working in both spaces (as an early career research in an institution while completing your studies or as a postdoc for example), you will also find you will be collaborating up in learning & teaching situations, research groups and/or committees. Once more you can find some of these experiences motivating and sometimes deflating. All these situations offer an opportunity to learn. To learn how your skills and strengths can contribute to the partnership, and also learn how you want to be, much aligned to the idea of Circle of Niceness introduced in the following chapter (Chapter 4). We frame collaborating up as a way to experience mentoring. It can be official (the individual knows) or not (you learn from them through observation and experience). As such this opportunity creates affordances for personal development and professional enhancement; improvement; engaging in self-reflection; new ways of thinking; building professional relationships; supporting personal development and professional enhancement; improving teaching, professional learning and research; engaging in self-reflection; and encouragement of new ways of thinking (Ambler, Harvey & Cahir, 2016).

Collaborating across

Undertaking doctoral study can be one of the most challenging, stressful, and isolating experiences of an academic career (Cumerma, 2018; Walton et al., 2019). Connecting with others will be one of the most significant self-care routines you can undertake. We acknowledge that connecting with your peers will be a huge part of this.

As a doctoral student collaborating across means seeking out social support with your peers. It is heavily based in forming a network. This can come in many forms for example in shared offices, at institutional or national conferences, with writing groups (e.g.: face-to-face within your institution or across or virtually (e.g.: #ACWRI or Academic Writing Month (also known as #AcWriMo) or #PhDchat on Twitter or Shut Up and Write groups), support groups, online groups (e.g.: Women in Academia Support Network or Doctorate Support Group on Facebook), writing retreats, or through doctoral research support offered initially. Core to these approaches is reaching out and forming relationships with those who are also at similar stages in their career to you and who can understand the complexity of being a doctoral student.

So how might you approach this? Let’s connect with Walton et al. (2019) ‘Three Cs’ of postgraduate study’ (pp. 129 -134) in Table 3.3.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Collaborating across means that you are able to seek support but also offer support - we call this passing it on, that is to share what you have been learning in approaches to writing, managing time, working with your supervisor or completing milestones of the doctoral journey. In collaborating across with openness and curiosity you are beginning to be a part of the Circle of Niceness - where sharing, reciprocity, mutual respect and celebrating learning moments for yourself and others can be enacted. We will unpack this further in Chpater 4. Key to collaborating across is learning from one another.

How can you utilise your peers for support?
How can you be proactive in creating opportunities?
How might you extend your networks to support you in the doctoral journey?

References

Ambler, T., Harvey, M., & Cahir, J. (2016). University academics’ experiences of learning through mentoring. Australian Educational Researcher, 43(5), 609-627.

Cumerma, A. (2018, 20 January). Smart people problems: We need to talk about PhD mental health. Times Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/smart-people-problems-we-need-talk-aboutphd-mental-health

Walton, H., Aquino, M. R. J., Talbot, C. V., & Melia, C. (2019). A Guide for Psychology Postgraduates: Surviving Postgraduate Study (second edition). London: The British Psychological Society.

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Collaboration and the PhD experience (Part 3): Collaborating up, across and passing it on

Collaborating up

Collaborating across