Collaboration is oft positioned a catch-all mode for addressing critical societal and environmental challenges. However, few people are prepared for the complexities a collaborative way of working presents once reaching the critical point of contribution. The types of collaboration needed in high-level systems change and transformational research is under-prioritised at all educational levels. In 2024 a transdisciplinary research network, established with UK Research & Innovation funding, fostered collaboration between environmental science and the textiles and clothing industry to tackle textile and clothing’s environmental impacts. A systemic approach to collaboration is essential to achieve wider sector transformation. However, despite prioritising collaboration, the question of HOW to collaborate is rarely asked and even less so effectively answered and resourced.

This paper presents findings from a study piloting an experiential approach to ‘learning to collaborate’. CollaborAcademy had three-fold aims:
a. to test the hypothesis that co-experience and a focus on language helps build collaborative skills;
b. to test a toolkit developed by design researchers during previous practice-based research and teaching projects;
c. to elucidate features for a syllabus for learning to collaborate to further disseminate the approach and build a pathway to implementation and impact.

The study recruited 12 doctoral researchers from environmental science, textiles engineering and fashion design. The design-based research team onboarded the participants about the study process and the toolkit. Participants formed four mixed discipline groups of three by geographic location. Over 6 weeks, the participants selected a field visit location to co-experience a common site related to the topic, coordinate their visit and complete two tasks using the toolkit. The teams then co-presented their experience. A co-creation workshop helped participants identify key features of a ‘learning to collaborate’ syllabus. These findings were further tested in the network Town Hall and with an industry and academic panel.

The study findings suggest that the experiential mode of learning was effective for fostering collaborative skills and mindsets. The participants learnt about one another but also about themselves, e.g, that scientists can be creative too and that reflection is an important part of both scientific and design practice. Notably, the most diverse teams and/or those visiting relatively benign sites, such as one another’s workspaces or exhibitions, showed richer collaborative learning. A central barrier to implementation was the tension between ‘learning to collaborate,’ the subject (sustainable fashion), and participants’ other normative disciplinary and career priorities. The study also found that stakeholders felt that collaboration could (and should) be learnt at various life stages, with different learning modes and challenges arising from different educational contexts. For example, IP was cited as a key challenge for industry participants, while the difficulty of cohort-forming and immaturity for ‘teamwork’ was a barrier at school and undergraduate level. The unpredictability of the disciplinary ‘recipe’ in course iterations was seen as a major risk factor with some incompatible combinations. The research team developed 6 scenarios for delivering the CollaborAcademy course, comprising combinational modular units that suit different contexts.

Keywords: Collaboration, Syllabus, Co-created education, Experiential collaboration, Pedagogy, Systemic collaborative learning.