Use social media to find collaborators in other countries

Author: Christabell Ndive

Research today is a truly global enterprise. You can see this just by looking at both author lists and citation lists on most published articles, which show contributors from around the world collaborating. Here you’ll see these authors citing global research, too. So how can you find collaborators for your work, beyond your home country’s borders? Social media can help make this possible, and the tips and tactics discussed below can help make that possible.

In this, the second blog in a series on how researchers can use social media in their daily work, we’ll take a look at how you can use social media to find collaborators from anywhere in the world.

Social media is global; and can also be specific

Social media networks have two aspects that can help you find collaborators from around the world. The first, is that they operate on a truly global scale — 60% of the global population (more than 5 billion people) have Internet access, and three quarters of global active researchers report using social media in their work. The second aspect is that people can use these platforms to find specific, interest-based communities. On Facebook, for example, people can join groups of like-minded people; and follow and like pages of shared interests. On microblogging sites like BlueSky or Mastodon, hashtags (#tags) make it possible to filter, sort, and follow specific topical interests.

And using a research-specific network like ResearchGate makes this even easier and clearer.

How to get started: Where to find your communities

Your main task: Find researchers who share your research interests.  

There are a few ways to approach this, one is: You can find and follow your community organizations on various social media platforms. In materials science, for example, this would include the Materials Research Society, the ASM, the TMS, and others. In neuroscience, that would be the Society for Neuroscience. In mathematics, the American Mathematical Society. These societies themselves maintain active social media presences, and you can often connect with like-minded researchers by following them.  

Another approach would be to find, follow, and join the communities that the authors of articles that you use in your research are part of. There are a few ways to do this. First, if you are on ResearchGate, you can often find those articles’ authors there. You may also come across other researchers commenting on or sharing the same articles too. From there, you can join those communities on ResearchGate.  

You can also search for the authors of articles and books you cite in your own work on other social networks; but it’s important to be aware that a lot of people have the same names, so you want to double-check the accounts that you find with the information (like institutional affiliation, for example) from their publications.  

These authors will often list their handles at other social networks as well. That makes it easier to find them there, and to join or follow the communities where they are active.

Getting involved in your communities

Once you’ve found the right places, you can participate in research-oriented conversations in those places, either by contributing or just by listening. Once there, you can reach out and connect with researchers from anywhere in the world who share your research interests. From there, it becomes much easier to connect and explore potential collaborations.   

Also, something to note: While it may seem counterintuitive, we’ve found that picking one platform and focusing on it — rather than trying to be everywhere — will tend to work better for most people. It helps you focus where you spend your time, to make the most of it. 

Global social networking

Social media was originally called social networking, and for research, that’s one of its superpowers. For research collaboration, it’s less about posting, re-posting, and liking, and more about making connections that you can then take offline and into real life. But it makes finding connections — that you might not be able to make any other way — possible.

While social media can be a powerful tool for finding collaborators, it’s not the only way to find like-minded researchers working on similar questions to you. You’ll find more advice, tools, and tips on Springer Nature's Author Hub on SpringerNature.com.