Academic Networking Face-to-Face: What it looks like and what it can tell us about Research Collaboration

Abstract

This paper draws on the tools of conversation analysis and network theory to investigate how academic networking takes place face-to-face in academic presentations. An analysis of 176 presentations made to interdisciplinary peer audiences by early-career scholars participating in an EU-funded postdoctoral programme reveals five functions of mentioning individual audience members (procedural, deictic anchoring of examples, contextualizing, co-membershipping, ‘fishing’ for research collaboration); it also highlights typical patternsof intertextual chaining. The study documents variation in the use of individual mentions by scholars from different disciplines; it also shows that the order in which scholars present influences the chances of their being mentioned by others. A follow-up questionnaire designed to probe how the patterns identified relate to subsequent collaboration shows that the scholars who mentioned others were more likely to maintain contact and co-author with members of their cohort. Implications of the study for a better understanding of the dynamics of research collaboration and for training for academic practice are briefly discussed.