How to conduct collaborative research studies

Collaborative research describes medical projects involving partnerships between different researchers, including within and between medical specialties, across disciplines, and between researchers and stakeholder [1].Collaboration offers the opportunity to examine complex phenomena, with different groups bringing distinctive areas of expertise and broadening the scope of studies by extending research outwith one particular discipline.Research questions that are generalisable; require large numbers of patients; or aim to complete promptly often require collaborative approaches.Modern research design and delivery usually require broader stakeholder engagement; collaborating with these groups improves research quality.The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of collaborative research to meet global challenges.Studies such as COVIDSurg [2], the Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) Collaborative [3], intubateCOVID [4] and the Randomised, Embedded, Multi-Factorial, Adaptive Platform Trial for Community-Acquired Pneumonia (REMAPCAP) [5] highlighted how collaboration could be harnessed rapidly to have significant implications for healthcare throughout the pandemic.Whilst well-funded collaborative studies delivered by experienced academics are likely to be successful, trials with modest or no funding can also influence clinical practice, such as those conducted by trainee research networks [6,7].However, there are no clear guides to support researchers in successfully conducting collaborative research studies.Rather than describe the welldefined clinical research processes in general or be a comprehensive guide, we aim to provide specific principles that apply to collaborative studies. Research design and deliveryDesigning collaborative studies is more complex than non-collaborative studies.They involve more people, often from a range of professional, geographic and socio-economic backgrounds.Given the complexity of delivering collaborative studies, investigators must first determine if collaborative research is appropriate and feasible for the research question and team involved.If a collaborative approach is appropriate, conduct can broadly be split into four stages: preparation, design, delivery, and analysis and publication (Table 1).We will use this structure to describe how to successfully realise a collaborative research project.