The challenges encountered during a collaborative research project.

Collaborative research in the clinical environment ensures that research questions are valued and relevant to health care professionals who are based in the clinical setting. This form of research is not without its difficulties and can present numerous challenges and conflicts. For successful collaboration, research teams need to invest a considerable amount of commitment and energy into team functioning and relationships. In addition, the team needs to work together through the pooling of resources, interests and talents. This includes the sharing of tasks that are time consuming and work intensive. Using the experiences gained from the pilot phase of a collaborative study this paper will offer solutions to a number of challenges that emerged from this study.