[link] presents an overview of the cohesiveness of the Control and the TX/UK cohorts, internally, institutionally, and regionally. This is observed within the following:
- A clear trend of trust.
- From Q23d, it can be seen that TX/UK participants are significantly more positive about regional cohesion than Control group respondents, who are more positive about institutional alignment (Q23c).
- Within both Questions Q23a and b, it can be seen that there is strong internal and institutional network in the TX/UK Collaborative participants.
- In Q23e, both the Control and the TX/UK cohorts see relevance of collaboration and international networking abilities.
As can be seen in [link] , both group of respondents view their own institutions favourably, yet interestingly there are a slightly higher proportion of the feelings of warmth, satisfaction and successfulness in the Control group, whereas the TX/UK Collaborative respondents found collaboration to be fuller, more exciting, stimulating, productive, facilitating, cooperative and enjoyable than the control group.
Interestingly within the TX/UK Collaborative respondents they felt better about themselves as a part of the academic community within Swansea University than their counterparts do, and dramatically not intellectually isolated as the control does ( [link] ). This observation introduces an interesting perspective of the individuals themselves, i.e., did their optimism and integration bring them to the Collaborative, or is it an effect of the process.
From the above ( [link] ) it can be observed that:
- Both cohorts recognise the relevance and impact of collaboration.
- Within the TX/UK Collaborative respondents there is a greater satisfaction of collaboration than within the Control group and
- A significantly higher level of trust and openness within those members of Swansea University that are involved with in the TX/UK Collaborative.
Supplemental questionnaire
A supplemental questionnaire was conducted amongst the TX/UK and Control cohorts to further explore the issues investigated through the first questionnaire.
Nature of collaboration
The first question asked was to identify the overall number of collaborations undertaken by the Control and “Collaborative” cohort researchers during the three years of the Collaborative. Both groups were given the range of 0 to 10 collaborations to identify, and asked to list their main and most recent collaborations over during Phase II of the Texas United Kingdom Collaboration 2007-2010. The result of this first question shows that during this period the “Collaborative” researchers were involved in 37% more collaborations than the control researchers ( [link] ). Digging further into the data shown below it was identified that one professor and one researcher involved in the “Collaborative” had undertaken 10 collaborations over the past three years.