VOSS: Successful Collaboration between Researchers from Developing and Developed Countries in Virtual Organizations

科学、技术和教育的进步越来越依赖于分散的国际科学虚拟组织，其中包括发达国家和发展中国家的研究人员。然而，人们对提高这些协作网络的有效性知之甚少。这项研究将把远程科学协作理论扩展到涉及发展中国家和发达国家的伙伴关系，并对这一修订后的理论进行实证检验。在文献回顾的基础上，我们将对理论进行修正，然后使用定性访谈和定量问卷在三个虚拟组织中与发展中国家和发达国家的研究人员一起检验修订后的理论。我们将更好地理解如何在这些虚拟组织中定义成功，哪些因素有助于成功协作，以及成功因素和成功衡量标准之间的联系。这项研究确定了发展中国家和发达国家的研究人员之间合作可能取得成功的条件。结果应说明各缔约方之间伙伴关系的动态，这些缔约方获得资源的机会各不相同，并可推广到获得资源机会不同的美国机构之间的伙伴关系。许多规模较小的美国机构和那些为代表性不足的群体提供服务的机构可能会遇到类似于发展中国家科学家面临的困难(科学能力低、通信基础设施差等)。了解不同获取资源的机会对参与科学协作的影响，将有助于决策者和资助机构更好地支持这种虚拟组织，并提高其成功的可能性。

The advancement of science, technology and education depends increasingly on distributed international scientific virtual organizations that include researchers in both developed and developing countries. Yet little is known about improving the effectiveness of these collaboration networks. This study will extend the Theory of Remote Scientific Collaboration to partnerships involving developing and developed countries and empirically test this revised theory. Based on a review of the literature we will modify the Theory then use both qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires to test the revised Theory in three virtual organizations with researchers in developing and developed countries. We will better understand how to define success in these virtual organizations, what the factors contribute to successful collaboration, and the connections between success factors and success measures. This study identifies the conditions under which collaboration between researchers from developing and developed countries are likely to be successful. Results should illuminate the dynamics of partnerships between parties whose access to resources varies and may generalize to partnerships between U.S. institutions with differential access to resources. Many smaller U.S. institutions and those serving underrepresented groups may encounter difficulties similar to those faced by scientists from developing countries (low scientific capacity, poor communication infrastructure, etc.). Understanding the effects of differential access to resources on participation in scientific collaboration will help policy makers and funding agencies better support such virtual organizations and improve the probability of their success.