Interdisciplinary exploration science

I've been invited to participate in a proposal to fund an interdisciplinary science team based at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Physics of Geoological Processes of Oslo in Norway. The team is planning to extend their work on the carbon cycle and evidence of life together in the lab and in the field in Svalbard over three summer seasons. This is a great prospect and I'm pretty excited about it. The opportunity to observe, understand and I hope enhance their work is fascinating, especially since much of the work will be at a distance, with some pretty intensive face to face time. My interest in communication in exactly this range of contexts is very high, and I hope will also be the focus of an extended research project that I've described here before. So I'll be working on a contribution to the proposal over the next few days.

Survey of Knowledge Transfer

I hoped someone had already invented this particular wheel, and in looking round (ha) for it, I found this survey commisioned by the Office of Science and Technology.

Collaboration in parallel worlds

The post title is also my working title for my research proposal on communication in scientific and engineering collaborations. As I'm working on it, and partners are reviewing it, I'm conducting a quick survey on UK Universities' Research and Business Development Offices to identify them and the range of services they provide. If that proves interesting, I may follow it up to gather some information on strengths, issues, and particularly aspects of communication modes (virtual, distance and face-to-face) and how they change or not as collaborations mature and/or develop into partnerships.