Drawing on participant surveys, technical reports and focus group discussions, this paper identifies three sets of lessons around conducting collaborative research for adaptation. The first set of lessons concerns partners, leadership, and relationships. Consortia bring together partners with different competencies, differing levels of capacity, and diversity related to culture, gender, age, hierarchy, professions, and expertise. The second set of lessons concerns teamwork, management, and collaborative research. Consortia must understand what motivates partners and define each partner’s role. The final lesson concerns transaction costs. There are benefits and costs to working in consortia. Complexity of coordinating a consortium increases with the number of partners, dispersed locations, and operating in diverse cultural settings.
