Reflections on adversarial collaboration from the adversaries: was it worth it?

There is much enthusiasm, in principle, for adversarial collaborations (ACs), a scientific conflict resolution technique that encourages investigators with clashing models to collaborate in designing studies that test competing predictions. Adversarial collaborations offer the promise of breaking deadlocked debates, resolving disputes, and providing a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of a research domain. In practice, however, adversarial collaborations are more the exception than the rule, and there is almost no evidence on how scholars who have ventured into ACs assess the experience. To understand these perspectives, we surveyed and interviewed 29 scholars who participated in 13 AC projects. The data revealed that interpersonal conflicts were generally minor, that these projects required more upfront effort than typical collaborations, but benefited from high-quality results and more thoughtful post-publication debates. Rather than producing a clear "winner," the most common outcome was a deeper understanding of the problem space through the integration of opposing perspectives. Although the generalizability of these findings is limited by a sample consisting only of scholars who completed an AC, they nonetheless highlight the value of ACs as a tool for advancing scientific inquiry and offer practical guidance for scholars and journals exploring this approach.