WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.700
<b><h4>Briefly describe your collaboration and why it was felt that working in a collaboration would be more effective than working alone to resolve your research question.</h4></b>

00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:06.710
<b>Dr Arturo Hernandez-Colina, PhD Researcher, University of Liverpool</b>

00:00:06.710 --> 00:00:21.500
We collaborated with two zoological gardens and with another PhD student. So it was impossible for me to do all the work, or to be everywhere, or to do everything alone. It was simply impossible. It was too much work. 

00:00:21.500 --> 00:00:44.415
The aims of our research started to be simple at the beginning, but because our research started to become more and more important, more people were involved. So at the beginning it was just the vets in the zoo. So it was easy to communicate with them, to transfer them our ideas and our objectives. But then, the animal keepers were involved, the gardeners, and other teams in the zoos were involved.
<hr />

00:00:44.415 --> 00:00:50.630
<b><h4>How was information or data collected, stored and shared?</h4></b>

00:00:50.630 --> 00:01:06.720
<b>Dr Arturo Hernandez-Colina:</b> Because we were collecting mosquitoes in the zoos, we have basic information about them that we store in a database. But the mosquitoes themselves were stored in the freezers in the university. So it was very important for us to have them there in perfect order. 

00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:27.180
So, for example, we have collections every week. So we have to label every mosquito with a specific code that tell us when it was collected, where it was collected, and where it was stored. And all this information was transferred to the database. And, of course, the database became more and more important. 

00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:57.770
So we had the database secure in one of the computers of the university. And I was the only one accessing that database. It was important to keep that information secure. I shared this information and this database with the students that worked with us, with my collaborators. But there were an adapted version for them. It was not the full thing, it was just what they needed to, because if something went wrong, the data could be missed.

00:01:57.770 --> 00:02:10.460
And that was a big risk because, as I was saying, it was too much information in a single place. So it's important to have the data in the lab, and in the computer, secure all the time. 
<hr />

00:02:10.460 --> 00:02:17.390
<b><h4>Did the collaboration pose any administrative challenges, such as differences in regulations or hiring and accounting practices? If yes, how did you deal with them?</h4></b>

00:02:17.390 --> 00:02:37.920
<b>Dr Arturo Hernandez-Colina:</b> For our research, we had to comply with the university ethical improvement. So I had to write all the information needed for that. So that took some time, and I wasn't concerned that it would take so much. So it's good to have these things in mind beforehand to start the research when it's supposed to start.

00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:55.910
In our case, it worked fantastically. But then, we collaborated with zoological gardens. And they also have their procedure, they also have their approvals. So we had to submit another ethical approval to them, as well as risk assessments. 

00:02:55.910 --> 00:03:16.180
So I had to put all this information about them, through their process and they have to assess it, and approve it, before we could start. So it was important to consider that we have to do all these things, as part of the research, in order for us to start. Otherwise, we could never have done it. 