Meeting needs & requirements: developing a Code of Conduct for an interdisciplinary consortium engaging with collaborative research practices in the Arctic

Research funding frameworks and programmes, such as Horizon
Europe, increasingly encourage and reward large-scale, interdisciplinary,
and international projects. These initiatives place growing requirements
on applicants to address complex global problems through a
shared understanding and a transparent commitment to ethics, equity,
gender, knowledge co-production, and citizen science. In this research
note, we introduce and evaluate several participatory methods
employed by an interdisciplinary research team in the development
of a project specific Code of Conduct during the start-up phase of a
Horizon Europe-funded and Arctic-focused project. This process served
as a foundational step to align diverse academic perspectives with
community-centred values, preparing the consortium for respectful
collaborative research with Indigenous rights holders and local communities
at a later stage of the project. By evaluating these early-stage
methodologies, we examine how the development of a Code of
Conduct by a consortium, early on in a project, can help to establish
the shared understanding necessary for interdisciplinary and international
research collaboration.