An interprofessional international research collaboration: exploration of key opportunities and challenges

Interprofessional research has made substantive progress in Brazil over the past decade, in line with globalization and the worldwide expansion of university international relationships. This sustained growth of interprofessional research in many other countries around the world has been increasingly reported in the literature. Interprofessional international research involves interactions and exchanges between researchers from different countries with different professional and disciplinary backgrounds who collaborate to undertake scholarly work. The benefits of interprofessional international research are many and varied. In this paper, we explore the opportunities and challenges related to interprofessional international research collaboration while reflecting on our personal experiences of a study focused on interprofessional collaboration in primary care which spanned two countries - Brazil and UK. A key element in our international research has been regular discussion, negotiation, and agreement. Collectively, these elements have helped to ensure that our international empirical work can be sustained.