Cooperation in the Latin American behavioral sciences: Motivation, evaluation and difficulties

This study investigated the motivation for establishing partnerships, how these partnerships are evaluated, and the difficulties encountered in the partnerships among Latin-American researchers in behavioral sciences. A hundred Latin-American researchers who had published scientific work indexed in Psycinfo in which another author from the continent participated. The participants answered a questionnaire on the above-mentioned topics. The results indicated that the main reasons for establishing partnerships with other Latin-Americans were to seek broader and more significant results and increased productivity or the visibility and recognition of production. As regards the evaluation of the results of the partnership, most participants indicated that the partnership has resulted in an increase in publications and publications of higher scientific level and greater visibility. Several difficulties were recognized, which in general, were access and communication in order to maintain the partnership. The main difficulties in conducting research were related to the final writing of the paper, as an article, chapter or other, as well as data collection. In terms of work infrastructure, the main barriers were financial constraints and lack of time to devote to the partnership. It can be concluded that the main reasons to cooperate are qualitative and quantitative advances, and that the difficulties in the partnerships are secondary.