FACILITATING ACCESSIBLE, INTERNATIONAL, & INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS
Finding research collaborators can be time-consuming, expensive, and at times nearly impossible. It shouldn't be. Gain access to more of the tools, instruments, experience, and knowledge in the world for little to no cost.
SCICOL is a website researchers can use to find new collaborators. Browse the current listings, or post your own in just a few minutes - available to any researcher, in any discipline, in any country.
HOW IT WORKS
Step 1: Search
Browse the listings to see if anyone is already looking for a collaborator with your needs or qualifications. Choose if you want to search posts by "Providers" or "Seekers" and then you can select filters and key words to narrow your search.
Seekers | researchers who are working on a specific project and looking for a someone with certain skills, expertise, or access to instruments to collaborate with
Providers | researchers who aren’t working on a specific project, but have a range of skills, expertise, or access to instruments that they can offer collaborators
Step 2: Post
To make your own listing, first select if you are “Providing” for or "Seeking" a collaboration. Then fill out the parameters that apply to your project, and include a description of your preferred collaboration.
Providing | you aren’t working on a specific project, but you have a range of skills, expertise, or access to instruments that you can offer collaborators
Seeking | you are working on a specific project and are looking for a collaborator with certain skills, expertise, or access to instruments to collaborate with you
Step 3: Collaborate
If you find a promising listing in your search, send the poster a message using the form at the bottom of the listing (or, if you created a post, wait for collaborators to contact you). Messages are sent to the the poster's email along with the searcher's email address; the poster's email is anonymous until they respond, so they can pick the collaborators they want to speak with while maintaining privacy.
HOW IT'S UNIQUE
ACCESSIBLE
Available to any researcher world-wide, and can be used fully with little to no money. Skip the airfare, hotels, and high fees of conferences so you can focus your time & money on the research. And all posts are free through 2018!
INTERNATIONAL
More than ever before we are working on problems that face all of humanity - the more we can collaborate with partners overseas, the faster we can develop lasting solutions to worldwide problems.
INTERDISCIPLINARY
Interdisciplinary collaborations can be particularly difficult to initiate, even for established researchers. SCICOL is open to all disciplines, from the hard sciences to the arts, for infinite possibilities.
WHO CAN USE IT
The short answer is, anyone! The long answer is that certain groups of people will find this more useful than others, due to the current nature of research and how collaborations are formed. If you already have plenty of funds, resources, and a great network, you probably don't need SCICOL. But many researchers are missing at least one of these, if not all. In particular, SCICOL will help:
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Researchers who have limited time and/or funding to attend conferences
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Researchers who need immediate access to collaborators
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Junior researchers who are still building their collaborative networks
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Graduate students hoping to improve their skills and work on more projects
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Industry professionals looking to connect with academics, and vice versa
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Researchers trying to enter a new or multidisciplinary field