In the face of compounding crises yet diminishing resources, we face a fundamental paradox: the scale of our challenges demands unprecedented collaboration – of skills, know-how, time, and resources. Yet experience shows that forced partnerships rarely succeed and ‘reluctant’ collaboration rarely endures. Organizations face mounting pressure to “collaborate or perish,” even as they struggle to protect their limited resources, ‘unique’ methodologies, and institutional identities.

Rather than forcing artificial partnerships, we may need to explore creating environments where meaningful collaboration can emerge organically while honoring different ways of knowing and working. This requires us to examine our assumptions about collaboration – moving beyond metrics-driven partnerships to understand how trust, sustained relationship building, and mutual respect create the foundation for meaningful joint action.

This dialogue aims to explore how we might create the conditions to move to collaboration that recognizes both the time needed for authentic partnerships to develop and the full spectrum of knowledge systems available to address our shared challenges