Editorial introduction

This special issue examines collaborative research from a methodological point of view. It considers the implications of the social processes of collaboration for the construction of scientific knowledge, in the interest, not of problematising the scientific process, but of drawing the process of collaboration into our methodological purview. Methodological scholarship has primarily been concerned with refining methodological techniques, such as questionnaires, interviews and experiments, without regard for the social conditions of knowledge construction—such as whether the research is individual or collaborative, the nature of the collaboration, or within which kind of social institution the research is carried out. We propose that the social practices through which research is conducted, the composition of the research team, the organisation of the team, and the social dynamics within the team should all be considered part of the methodology of scientific research.