Many academic teams and granting agencies undergo a process of reflection at a project’s completion to understand lessons learned and develop best practice guidelines. These reviews focus on the actual research work accomplished with little discussion of the relationships and processes involved. As a result, some hard-earned lessons are forgotten or minimized. To address, the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) project provides an opportunity to explore the changing nature of collaboration over a long-term project’s life. Now at the fourth year, team members reflect on the deepening and strengthening collaboration, with layers of engagement between the various individuals and sub-research areas, which has translated into productivity and external validation of the collaboration and its work. The article concludes with recommendations for other teams.

1. economic development
2. rural entreprenuership
3. small business
4. training

Original publication: Siemens, Lynne. (2014). Research Collaboration as “Layers of Engagement”: INKE in Year Four. Schol-arly and Research Communication, 5(4): 0401181, 12 pp.DOI: https://doi.org/10.22230/src.2014v5n4a181