Consortium Dynamics
Coordination and Collaboration in Multi-Party R&D Consortia
CONTENT
This course is held in English
COLLECTIVE CAPACITY AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT
Consortia, like those involving the University of Twente, are inherently diverse and ambitious. These collaborations bring together smart people with various technical disciplines, competing academic and private interests, and differing national and professional cultures. Such factors may profoundly influence both the course of their collaboration, and the results achieved.
The coordination complexity of these joint endeavours demands a great deal from individuals in roles like “Coordinator” and “Work Package Lead.” However, beyond logistics and structure, the collaboration complexity - aligning individual and collective interests while building trusted working relationships - presents often an even greater challenge to the coordinator.
LEARNING OUTCOME
Our online introduction, followed by a two-day on-campus program, supports your professional Coordinator identity and skills in interorganizational collaborations. You will learn to:
A. Assess collaboration complexities and establish effective (group-)work conditions
Evaluate the complexities of the consortium work environment and their impact on both you and your (prospective) partners. Create conditions for constructive working relationships that go beyond the pre-defined “mechanical structure” in the Consortium Agreement. Enhance the breakdown and organization of the consortium’s tasks to establish a constructive work setting.
B. Navigate Consortium Dynamics shaped by interdependencies, synergies and identities
Effectively intervene in group impasses to improve collaboration quality. Expand the “potential space” between partners, fostering mutual value creation and building a collaborative work system aligned with both individual and collective consortium goals like societal impact. Navigate the relational dynamics of diversity and its effects on your consortium effectiveness.
UT considers this Consortium leadership skills a competitive advantage in the proposal phase as well as the delivery phase of your collaborations. As you learn to build more collective capacity around a joint ‘consortium-task’. In this course we identify and analyse the key systemic and psychodynamic factors that influence collaboration. We do not address the ‘technical and procedural’ tasks of the coordinator (proposal writing, project management, IPR etc.) but the relational dynamics of multi-party collaboration and how to intervene in this effectively. To handle with care and confidence the collaboration complexities in multi-party R&D consortia.
PARTICIPANTS
Consortiumdynamics has been over the years highly valued by the UT participants for its practice orientation (your own cases), the combination of experiential learning, relevant theoretic concepts, and introductions of experienced consortium leaders.
For PhD’s: Notice that in your Training & Supervision Plan for PhD candidates (Doctoral Education Program) you can find Consortium dynamics as an option in the learning track: Research Support.
ORGANIZATION OF THE PROGRAM
The program is administered on behalf of the Twente Graduate School and the UT Career Development Centre by Janneke de Sousa and Sofia Boekholt.
Faculty are experts who combine academic and leadership roles in multi-party organization: drs. Frans Grobbe, Prof. dr. Sandra Schruijer.