Table 3 Summary of hypotheses and findings

Hypothesis 1: Collaborations are more common among members working at the same site.

Supported across Past, Current and Future Collaborative tie networks.

Hypothesis 2: Collaborations are more common between two or more researchers, or two or more clinicians, than between clinicians and researchers.

Partially supported. This was true of Past Collaborations but not for Current and Future intended Collaborations.

Hypothesis 3: People who have collaborated together in the past and report strong ties between them are more likely to be collaborating now and intending to collaborate in the future.

Supported. Current Collaboration ties: 54% were described as strong or very strong and 67.3% had worked together or collaborated before. The TRN manager accounted for the other 32.7% of ties.

Future ties: 43.9% were described as strong or very strong and 70.6% had worked together or collaborated before.

Hypothesis 4: People who have past experience of translational research are more likely to be involved in current and future collaborations.

Partially supported. Only 10 of the 52 respondents reported no experience. The Current Collaboration network had 88.5% of members with past experience and only three of the 10 without experience. In the Future intended network there were nine of the ten with no experience.

Hypothesis 5: Future intended collaborations have the most ties reported as weak or very weak, or based on a member’s reputation compared to the past or current collaborative networks.

Supported. There were 2.8% ties described as weak in the Current Collaboration network while there were 29.3% described as weak in the Future intended network. Ties that were known by reputation rose from 3.8% in the Current to 9.4% in the Future intended network. Members that were described as not known at all went from one member reporting one tie in the Current to 10 members reporting 64 ties in the Future intended network.