How an academic can reconcile the problem of collaboration and competition with colleagues at the same time?

Question

In many fields of academia, a professor must get grants to fund his research (e.g., medicine, biology).

Early in academic career, a scientist can have naive expectations about how things work in academia and later may be surprised by the reality. One such surprise is the compete and collaborate paradox.

Later in career, it may be not so simple to collaborate and share fully your ideas, since twice a year (or so) we all submit grants and we suddenly are less friendly colleagues who share ideas, but we compete with each other or between "groups". For example, we don't let anyone see our full grant submissions. (e.g., NIH medical grants - full text must be requested by freedom of information act and only abstracts are on the web).

• How do you handle in every day life, at conferences, in hallway conversations this paradox of collaborating and competing at the same time in academia?

• How do you determine what to share?

• Do you avoid colleagues who are known to 'tell only the minimum' at congresses and then surprise later with an accepted grant?

Philosophically, is impossible to collaborate and compete at the same time and one has to have some ethical structure but everyone's boundaries seem to be different!

Answer 1

How do you handle in every day life, at conferences, in hallway conversations this paradox of collaborating and competing at the same time in academia?

I ignore it, except around known jerks. I'm lucky enough to work in a research community that generally values collaboration over back-stabbing. There are a few exceptions, of course, but they fall under the category of "known jerks". I'd much rather gain a coauthor and get the result out together than to keep secrets and risk being scooped.

Yes, I have developed coauthors this way. Yes, I have published papers this way that might not have been published otherwise. Yes, I have been scooped, but only by people I had not discussed my ideas with.

Your mileage may vary.

How do you determine what to share?

I don't share ideas or problems that students (either mine or not) are actively working on, without the students' explicit permission. Otherwise, I'm open about everything, except around known jerks. In particular, if you want my latest grant proposal, just ask.

Do you avoid colleagues who are known to 'tell only the minimum' at congresses and then surprise later with an accepted grant?

No. Why should I?