Academics who wish to collaborate have plenty of options; a co-authored paper, co-taught module, conference panel, grant proposal and teaching innovation project are just a handful. But between the moment colleagues say, “We should do something together” and the moment the collaboration ends, they face difficult decisions about ideas, responsibility and standards. Responsibilities blur, priorities change and frustrations accumulate. These issues arise not only through poor communication, lack of trust and personality clashes. They are often products of the academic environment.
Academia rewards individual judgement, originality and critique. This can make the transition from individual to collaborative work tricky but it doesn’t mean academics are ill-equipped to navigate it. In fact, skills developed in this environment can improve collaborations and potentially lead to stronger work.
Use critique to build momentum
In academia, critique is viewed as an intellectual contribution. This creates collaborative tension: when work is already strong, colleagues might still feel pressure to identify weaknesses and opportunities for expansion and refinement. For example, a paper might be close to ready for submission but each feedback round generates new requests: another robustness test, a broader literature discussion, sharper hypothesis, different journal positioning or an additional mechanism. Each suggestion might be reasonable. But the manuscript never finalises because the definition of “ready” keeps changing.
This is where disciplined critique comes in. It means only focusing on what the collaboration needs by asking questions such as:
- Does this comment address a must-fix problem, offer a useful improvement or reflect a personal preference?
- Does this comment serve the project’s aim or could we address it later outside the project?
- Based on this comment, do I need to revise now, investigate further or move forward and address it later?
Disciplined critique helps academic collaborators distinguish necessary improvements from “nice-to-haves”, sustaining both momentum and academic rigour.
Clarify roles when authority overlaps
In academic collaboration, hierarchies can blur because academic rank, administrative position and project responsibility do not always align.
For example, an assistant professor might lead a module that includes a professor and head of department as a co-teacher. The module leader is responsible for assessment deadlines, student communication and consistency across teaching weeks but might hesitate to take on co-ordination tasks because the co-teacher is more senior in both academic rank and administrative position. At the same time, the senior colleague’s suggestions might be misinterpreted as instructions. The uncertainty is not about the teaching task itself but about which collaborator should guide the conversation: the module leader responsible for delivery or the senior colleague who has greater institutional authority.
When questions about authority arise, the project lead should be clear about who is responsible for co-ordination. In a co-taught module, this might mean saying: “For this module, I will coordinate deadlines, assessment documentation and student-facing communication to ensure consistency. When it comes to delivery, I will rely on your subject expertise. If a wider school policy issue arises, I will seek your advice as the head of department.” This kind of wording legitimises the coordinator’s role, demonstrates respect for the senior colleague’s expertise and prevents institutional hierarchy from quietly taking over a module-level/project-level decision.
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Understand different motivations
Academic collaborators might agree that an activity is worthwhile but it may not carry the same professional value for everyone involved. Universities reward teaching, research, industry engagement and institutional service differently, and these differences vary by track and career stage.
For example, an industry-informed assessment or live project that improves student employability might provide useful promotion evidence for a teaching-track colleague or practice-track colleague. For a research-track colleague, the same activity might be valuable but less urgent unless it leads to a paper, grant or recognised research output. Similar differences arise in publication collaborations: one university might value a broad range of Scopus-indexed journals while another might give meaningful credit only to journals on a specific list, such as the Financial Times 50.
Navigating this involves recognising that the same collaboration might carry different professional value for different colleagues. Before dividing tasks, ask collaborators what they value about the opportunity and how they would like to be recognised. Transparency helps set fair expectations about effort, urgency and outputs.
Agree on the role AI will play
Team members might not see eye to eye on what materials can be uploaded to AI tools, what AI-generated text or analysis can be used, and what must be checked when using AI in shared work. One colleague might treat AI as a harmless drafting assistant while another might worry about confidentiality, authorship, hallucinated references or loss of scholarly judgement.
Before using AI in collaborative work, agree on what can be uploaded, what kinds of AI-generated output can be used and who is responsible for verification.
There is much more to effective academic collaboration than simply getting along with colleagues. It requires disciplined critique, clarity about roles, understanding of motivations and transparency around AI use. These can help improve collegiality while keeping academic rigour at the heart of the process.
Yan Jin is senior teaching fellow, Ye Bai is senior associate professor in finance and Jie Zhang is associate professor of accounting, all at the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
This advice is based on the work developed through the Research Centre of Excellence for Business Education Research at the IBSS, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
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