Building sustainable global collaborative networks: Recommendations from music studies and the social sciences

Abstract

Global collaborative networks have been established in multiple fields to move beyond research that over-relies on “WEIRD” participants and to consider central questions from cross-cultural and epistemological perspectives. As researchers in music and the social sciences with experience building and sustaining such networks, we participated in a virtual symposium on February 7, 2021. to exchange knowledge, ideas, and recommendations, with an emphasis on developing global networks to investigate human music-making. We present 14 key take-home recommendations, particularly regarding 1) enhancing representation of researchers and research participants, 2) minimizing logistical challenges, 3) ensuring meaningful, reproducible comparisons, and 4) incentivizing sustainable collaboration and shared research practices that circumvent research hierarchies. Two overarching conclusions are that sustainable global collaborations should attempt shared research practices including diverse stake-holders, and that we should fundamentally re-evaluate the nature of research credit attribution.