This book is a guide for early career researchers in any discipline engaging in collaborative work or who would like to do so in the near future. The material contained within is primarily involved with how to work with non-academics and practitioner organisations, however, the tools and tips presented can be equally valuable to those struggling to engage in collaborative projects with other academics.Structured in 10 chapters, the guide is implicitly divided into three sections. Chapters 1-3 introduce collaborations: why they are important for researchers, what benefits they can bring, why they can be challenging, and their main typologies. Chapters 4-7 cover tools and best practices to maximise the chances of finding a collaborator and of setting up the collaboration for success. Finally, chapters 8-10 provide insights and frameworks to help researchers understand how best to manage and evaluate a collaboration once it is up and running.These pages are the result of a combination of postdoctoral-level research projects that the author conducted on the topic of knowledge exchange and academia-practice collaboration in the context of the social sciences, and the author's own personal experience collaborating and facilitating cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaborations involving the researcher as a university administrator, a social entrepreneur, and an academic. It thus brings a combination of academic rigour with hands-on advice, practical insights, and case studies.
