Joint Research Projects: Experiences and Recommendations

ELAWAT (“Resilience of the Wadden Sea ecosystem”) was one of the larger joint projects ever undertaken in German marine sciences. As this project is ending, we have compiled our experiences with that joint research approach in this chapter, as this could be helpful in respect to future projects and research policies. In order to learn from this experience, we try to be frank in stating deficits, mistakes and matters that were overlooked. These were mainly caused by the severe structural, financial and personnel problems found in the German University system at the moment, so that we comment on that situation as well. This chapter contains only those experiences and recommendations drawn from ELAWAT; in other parts of the “Ecosystem Research Wadden Sea” there were different experiences. In addition, we have listed several research questions which remained either unanswered or which arose during the “Ecosystem Research Wadden Sea”, and we also recommend areas for future research emphasis.