Scientific collaboration in data‐intensive research networks: <scp>PhD</scp> fellows' expectations and early experiences

Abstract Collaboration has become important at all stages of research careers. In data‐intensive research fields such as wind energy, many PhD fellows are socialized to such collaboration in networks that train a cohort of PhD fellows. Based on interviews with 23 PhD fellows in four wind‐energy training networks, we investigate their expectations and early experiences regarding scientific collaboration. We find that expectations for collaboration are high, but also that the PhD fellows' expectations and early experiences differ. Their experiences are influenced by conditions that make collaboration a balancing act at the organizational, content, process, and personal levels. At the organizational level, learning scientific collaboration involves negotiating interdependencies that are created at the network‐proposal stage and presume collaborations about data among the PhD fellows in the network. At the content and process levels, the PhD fellows are dependent on collaboration to collect, analyze, share, validate, and compare data. At the personal level, devising a doable dissertation involves that the individual PhD fellow succeeds in realizing these collaborations. While the studied wind‐energy research networks nurture a collaborative environment, the collaboration they presume and the rewards it promises come with the risk of imposing imbalanced collaborations on some PhD fellows.