From Project to Permanence: Growing Inter-institutional Collaborative Teams into Long-Term, Sustainable Communities of Practice

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The opportunity for academics to draw on concepts, methods and insights from colleagues in disciplines and organisations other than their own is well recognised as an effective strategy to promote the interconnectivity of knowledge, and pursue new learning and understanding. In the right circumstances, with the right nurturing, one-off project collaborations can become long-term communities of practice, ensuring social and professional learning well past the original project’s expiry date. This chapter outlines learning from a recently completed research project in which the five authors, representing three New Zealand Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs), conducted a first-of-its-kind national survey, together with follow-up interviews, of the effectiveness of collaboration within funded projects and longer term outcomes—including staff engagement, enhanced networking opportunities and sustainable communities of practice. We begin with a brief description of the New Zealand higher education environment and the role of Ako Aotearoa, together with a commentary on the authors’ own community of practice, followed by an outline of the recently completed research project entitled A national evaluation of inter-institutional collaborations. Next, a survey of the literature is summarised in which the concept of communities of practice and the nature of collaborative communities are interrogated. Following this, the findings of the study are shared—these include: factors that affected collaborative communities, accounts of the development of relationships that progressed from initial collaboration through to more well-developed communities of practice, and evidence of benefits to multiple stakeholders. Finally, details of the good practice guide we produced to assist future collaborative project teams in the higher education sector are shared, together with an identification of several related areas that warrant further study.