Research collaboration and sustainability: taking it slow

One of the big issues that we are all facing in our lives and (to greater or lesser extent) in our research, is that of sustainable futures: how can we ensure that we are creating a world where everyone is empowered to ‘make informed decisions in favour of environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society for present and future generations’ (UNESCO 2021, p.1)? In relation to education, questions arise around what sustainable education means, and how sustainability relates to research methods in education. UNESCO’s sustainable development goals relate explicitly to the provision of ‘inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning education for all’ (United Nations 2015, p.18), and implicitly link to education in terms of the contribution that education can make in our progress towards all 17 sustainable development goals. Sustainable education, then, is both about ensuring our education is inclusive, equitable, and high-quality, and about learning how we can live in an environmentally and economically sustainable and socially just way, so we can create sustainable futures for forthcoming generations.

Turning to research methods in education, these relate to sustainability in terms of the methods we use to research sustainable education, and to research education that helps make progress towards the SDGs, but also in terms of how we can ensure that our methods themselves have environmental integrity and are socially just. Last year’s double Special Issue in the International Journal of Research & Method in Education, on Racially-Just Methodologies (Rizvi 2022a, 2022b), brought to the fore conversations around racial and social justice in our methods. These conversations are continuing and are opening up discussions about what is valued as method and methodologies, and whose traditions are drawn upon in our approaches to research. Another strand to the conversation around sustainable research methods, however, also includes that of environmental sustainability. Below, we consider how one aspect of environmental sustainability - that of international travel - relates to building research relationships and sharing of ideas and ways of thinking, and as such might help us step beyond traditional colonial approaches to educational research methods.

As we move into a post-covid world, many of us are enjoying the return to in-person interaction, but also valuing the flexibility that a more digitally-focused world brings. On the face of it, our increasing digital literacy (which the covid pandemic necessitated) has meant that we now have more flexibility in interacting with others from around the world, and we are no longer reliant on international travel to meet with others. Researchers and academics were forced to become more digitally-literate as a profession during the pandemic (e.g. Keen et al. 2022; Roberts et al. 2021). This has meant that we have expanded our repertoire of what is ‘normal’ in terms of interaction with others. Meeting colleagues and research participants online is now commonplace, as is remote working. We have become used to working collaboratively with others in online fora and travel is no longer seen as necessary in research collaboration. We do not have to fly across the world to meet with our fellow researchers, when interaction by video chat and working simultaneously on online documents is now so commonplace. We explored digital methods and ‘E-research’ in our 2015 special issue, but the context of what is possible and widely-used has moved on since then. As new technologies are developed, new possibilities for research and research collaboration open up, and new ways of using more established technologies are also considered.

Not everyone, however, has equal access to online working, even at a basic level with access to equipment and connection speeds varying according to individual contexts. During the Covid 19 pandemic, online interaction meant that it was possible to continue research collaborations and research activity. Nonetheless, continuing to default to online interaction in a post-pandemic era can result in researchers with good access to up-to-date technology becoming the more powerful and dominant voices in collaborations. Researchers working with older or limited technology and slow or disrupted connections may become (more) marginalized – if only because it is technologically harder for their voices to be heard (see Trahar et al. 2020, for an excellent introduction to digital inequalities). Differing access to technology can mean, then, that it is easier for some voices and perspectives to be dominant, while alternative perspectives remain unexplored (e.g. Shoredike et al. 2017). Picking up on the themes explored by Rizvi (2022a, 2022b), unequal access to technology and the resulting potential for some voices to dominate can be a challenge to developing socially-just approaches to our research. This highlights the potential value of meeting with international collaborators ‘in real life’ - taking the time to travel and spend time getting to know each others’ perspectives and ideas. Sustainable research methods are not as simple as ‘travelling less’: we also need to consider how to pursue social justice and not make assumptions based on dominant voices.

The development of our digital literacy and capacity means that it is possible to conduct much of our day-to-day work remotely, so we do not always have to be physically present at our employer’s campus. Changing expectations about working practices mean many of us are more able than ever to work remotely in our day jobs for periods of time. We have more flexibility to travel slowly (and slow travel such as train or boat is generally more environmentally sustainable than fast travel such as air) with less need to cram research-related travel into as short a time as possible. There is potential to spend time away from our home institutions while building collaborative research relationships with others. This allows for alternative ways to think about sustainable travel, beyond assuming that online interaction is an appropriate substitute. There is potential for researchers to spend more time away from their home institution, so they can invest in developing relationships and understanding their collaborators’ research perspectives.

This slower approach to research is of course somewhat at odds with the efficient productivity requirements of the neoliberal academy (Tight 2019). Nonetheless, the value of taking time to build collaborative research relationships and to understand and work with each others’ perspectives cannot be underestimated (Costas Battle et al. 2022). Valuing the inter-personal aspects of collaboration, and not just privileging collaboration only with those with whom online interaction is easy, should ultimately lead to a fairer and more just approach to research. But it is worth considering that slow travel and dividing attention between our day-to-day roles and our collaborative relationships is potentially draining. We need time to immerse ourselves in research and pay attention to our collaborative research relationships, but also to maintain a personal life. A constant dividing of attention is not personally sustainable, and there a balance needs to be found between day-to-day work of being an academic, research work, and our own personal lives. The need for sustainability in our research practices – environmentally sustainable, socially just, and personally sustainable – pulls us towards ‘the slow’ in more ways than one.