Two participants played more than one role in this research. Jan Barnsley, who I refer to in chapter two as an author, is also one of the interviewees. Hers was the first interview I did for this project and on top of offering profound insights into the understanding of collaboration between university-based and non universitybased researchers, she suggested other interviewees and themes to explore. Jan Barnsley has given her consent to be openly acknowledged in this thesis.

As I was preparing the list of interviewees it became clear to me that I needed to interview my supervisor, Allison Tom. Had Allison not been my supervisor, I would have chosen her as an interviewee because she has been involved in two major collaborative research projects and has written about these experiences. Her understandings had greatly influenced the way I think of and work with collaboration. I decided that her voice should be included as one participant in the project. I have given Jan Barnsley and Allison Tom pseudonyms and they both have agreed to being identified in this way.

Elusive classification

Categorizing the interviewed researchers is as elusive as was the task of selecting them. Interviewees are typically described based on their age, gender, ethnicity, social class, education, etc. Although I did not expect all of these characteristics to be linked to different perspectives on collaborative research, I did expect that one of them, work location, would explain some of the differences in understandings. Table 1 shows the distribution of interviewees according the their place of work.

Table 1 - Interviewees according to location