Creating International Inclusive Research teams

Have you ever wondered what it's like being in an international research team? What about conducting inclusive research with an international team? Join us as we speak to Daniela Chan Viquez, about some realities of working in international research teams and why inclusion is essential in international teams and research teams in general. 

For the full transcript and other resources, please check out the podcast website:  https://inclusiveresearchwithpirl.buzzsprout.com/  

Where to find us:

Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6j7iKcXmpY&ab_channel=PIRLProject 

Website: https://oticlab.utoronto.ca/research-projects/pirl/about-the-pirl-project/  

Email: PIRL@utoronto.ca

Speaker’s Bio:

Daniela worked as a physical therapist in Costa Rica for five years. Her clinical practice was mainly focused on rehabilitation for children with disabilities. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Rehabilitation Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. Daniela’s project explores how interactive computer play (ICP) technologies, like video games, can be implemented for home rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy. She is especially interested in finding successful ways in which these ICP technologies can be used as an alternative motor therapy for children with cerebral palsy living in rural communities and developing countries, where access to rehabilitation services can be limited.

You can learn more about Daniela's work here: https://hollandbloorview.ca/research-education/bloorview-research-institute/research-centres-labs/pearl-lab
You can get in touch with  Daniela here: d.chanviquez@mail.utoronto.ca

Transcript

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00:00 – 00:08

[Music]

00:08 – 00:45

[Music fades in background and continues]

Bernard Ngwa 

Hello. Welcome to the inclusive research with PIRL  podcast, my name is Bernard Ngwa. In this episode, our guest was Daniela Chan Viquez and we discussed on the topic, Creating International Research Teams. We talked about what defines an international research team, why it is important for international teams to be inclusive among other points. The transcript of this conversation can be accessed through the link in the podcast description. Now let’s ride on.

[Music stops]

00:46 – 00:50

Bernard Ngwa

Good day, Daniela, and welcome to the inclusive research PIRL podcast.

00:51 – 00:53

Daniela Chan Viquez

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:54 – 01:17

Bernard Ngwa  

Thank you. Thank you, we're so excited to have you. And we know it's going to be a great one. Thank you for creating the time out of your busy schedule to be part of this podcast. Before we dive into the subject of today, we’ll like to know you, and I'm sure our listeners will like to know you, too. Could you give, you know a brief of yourself? Thank you.

01:18 – 01:59

Daniela Chan Viquez

Yeah, sure. So as you said, my name is Daniela. I'm from Costa Rica. But I've been living in Canada since 2015. I arrived here to do like a Master's. And then I arrived by myself. And now I have a dog, a husband and a daughter. So, so I think I'm staying. So when, when I was in my Master's, so I'm a physiotherapist by training and I've always worked with people, with children with special abilities or with different abilities. 

02:00 – 02:35

Daniela Chan Viquez

That's, that has been my,  always my focus. And then I arrived in, in Montreal in 2015, to do my master's at McGill. I didn't really kind of work in that, in that specific area. But during my Master's, I did work as an assistant in an international research project. And I didn't know that because it was really early in my research training, I really didn't know that that was like kind of something possible. It was like mind blowing. To me, it was like, wow, you can actually do research internationally, this is so cool. 

02:36 – 03:15

Daniela Chan Viquez

And it was, it wasn’t really, it was a fund project with stroke participants. And it was an intervention that they were testing in three different countries: Israel, Canada, and India. And I was kind of in the, in the Canadian research team and we have to like coordinate with all the other teams. And it was just very exciting, and interesting to learn from how to manage that kind of research project and how, like everybody in their respective teams bring their culture and like their way of doing things. 

03:16 – 03:49

Daniela Chan Viquez

And sometimes there's a lot of challenges because of that, but it's also a very enriching experience. So after I did that I moved a little bit to do my PhD. And I've always had this project in the back of my mind, about testing video games, or movement video games. I don't know if you guys are familiar with like, for example, the Wii Fit or the Xbox Kinect where you have to move your body around to actually play a video game.

03:50 – 04:25

Daniela Chan Viquez

So I was always interested on how these types of technologies can be used to improve or provide like an alternative way of therapy for children with different abilities. And I've always wanted to test these kind of technologies in, in people that have no access to rehab services, because they live very far, because they don't have the money to pay for them, because they don't have the time to go to a therapy session and then come back and or maybe it's a family that have five kids and the mom has to like split herself into a million pieces.

04:26 – 04:58

Daniela Chan Viquez

 And so I've always wanted to try this with, with people that really don't have any other options or that don't have access to any traditional rehab therapy. But I never,  I've always wanted to do this in Costa Rica because it was where I was trained for most of my clinical life, I worked with the populations that had like a really hard time accessing therapy. And I really wanted to try this with those families that I've worked with. 

04:59 – 05:37

Daniela Chan Viquez

But I thought that it was pretty kind of impossible for a PhD project because it was just like so big. But, I pitched the idea to my advisory committee. They were so supportive and so like, sure if this is what you like, let's just do it and so here I am, three years later. And I'm, I'm still doing it. And It's been a big learning curve but basically, that's kind of my full or yeah, my like my background and why I decided to embark in this international research team kind of journey. 

05:38 – 06:10

Daniela Chan Viquez

I’m very passionate about doing international research, I think there's so much that we can learn from each other. And one, one of the main reasons that, that I wanted to embark on this is because sometimes I feel like Canada is a developed country, so sometimes we do research for people that they may not, how do I say this, it's not that the research is not valuable, of course, it's not that it's very valuable

06:11 – 06:48

Daniela Chan Viquez

but the way that a person that has access to 10 types of therapy versus the way that a person appreciates a new product that has no access to other therapies is very different. So I think we need to, to prove our end product in a research with, with all kinds of, with all different types of peoples and not just with the people that we, that have access to, to many things. So that's basically my main rationale, my main motivation behind, behind doing this difficult research.

06:49 – 07:17

Bernard Ngwa 

Alright. Well, thank you for that Daniela, you had such a vast experience and a long established career. And we're going to come to that. I have a couple of questions, relative to what you have experienced. But getting to the crux of the subject of today. We would like to know what defines an inclusive international research team and why is it very important for international teams to be, to be inclusive?

07:18 – 07:51

Daniela Chan Viquez

Well, this, this is an interesting question. When we talk about being inclusive, and this is, like I appreciate that you say that I have a very long career, but it's not that long compared to other people that have been doing this their whole lives, I'm, I'm pretty much still learning the process, but it has been like a big learning curve. And for me, for in my short experience, I realized that inclusive can mean two different things. 

07:52 – 08:27

Daniela Chan Viquez

So we have to be inclusive in the term in the, in the way that we really need to include the community, at least for, for, for research projects that involve patients  or participants with some with different conditions. We really need to find those community stakeholders. And when we run a project or when we analyze our data, we really need to have representation from all the different pieces that make this project come together. 

08:28 – 09:13

Daniela Chan Viquez

So just to give you the example of my project, because this is what I know. So it's what I can talk about. We work with families with children with different abilities. So, for and we are doing quantitative but also qualitative data collection. So for example, for interviews, we have a physiotherapist that it's a pediatric physical therapist, we have like the researchers from our Canadian team, we have a psychologist, we have obviously persons with lived experience that have some kind of liking for video games so they can talk about that. We have also parents in the team. 

09:14 – 09:52

Daniela Chan Viquez

So it's, it's a big thing. But, but when you, when you look at the data, you cannot really come to a conclusion. If there's just like a couple of people looking at those, at those interviews, like there's so much richness in, in all the conversations that you have with the participants. But if you've never had a disability, or if you're not a parent of a child that has a disability, then that piece is missing if you don't include them in the process of running the project and analyzing your results. So that's one part of what it means to be inclusive. 

09:53 – 10:18

Daniela Chan Viquez

I really think that the teams need to be composed by like a really interdisciplinary group of people. But also, it means to be inclusive in when you're building your research team and your international partnerships, you need to be inclusive of those partnerships and try to have at least equal representation on both sides.

10:19 – 10:42

Daniela Chan Viquez 

It happens a lot that when like money is a big, a big, plays a big part on this being inclusive. So sometimes when the, the country or the institution that is funding the project, because it's, it's usually the developed country that funds the project on the undeveloped country or the developing country.

10:43 – 11:05

Daniela Chan Viquez 

So sometimes it's very easy to not have that balance, and to have everybody, let's say, on the, on the rich country team, because we know better. And, you know, like we have the money. So, So we're funding this project. And I understand there's some politics around, around that.

11:06 – 11:22

Daniela Chan Viquez 

But, but we have to kind of be mindful that if we are, if we have like an international partnership, then we have to kind of have equal representation, because there's no way you can understand the different culture, if you don't have people from that culture, explain it to you. 

11:23 – 11:48

Daniela Chan Viquez 

So that in terms of building inclusive teams, I think,I think that's something that you. It's difficult, but you really have to make an effort if you want the project to be successful. Because if not, then it's just going to be very skewed, the results that you obtain, or maybe it's not even going to be possible to finish if you don't have a balance in that team of people.

11:49 – 12:20

Bernard Ngwa 

Absolutely, Daniela. You have, you have, your points are spot on. And just as you said, summary of it is, include communities and families with children with different abilities. Now, earlier on, you recounted your experience working with international teams. And we would like to know, based on your experience, and what you have done so far, what are some of the surprising learnings you have had to acquire in your process?

12:21 – 13:22

Daniela Chan Viquez 

The surprising learnings? Wow, well, that's, there's a lot of surprises. So I've learned that you have to be very specific with what you want and how you want it. Like when you're, for example, when you're running an intervention in three different countries, then you really need to set the like, do a proper training and have like, I don't know how to, how to say is you really have to be like, so detailed and so specific on how everything's going to be run because it's very difficult to kind of drift away from, from what you're supposed to do. And every when one thing has to be done the same way, in three different countries. 

13:23 – 13:50

Daniela Chan Viquez 

Sometimes it's really difficult because we all have different cultures and different ways of doing things. And we may have a different language and then, then it's like you add another layer of challenge to try to do the same thing in, in both countries. So that's, that's one thing you cannot. You can never be specific and detailed enough. So attention to detail is extremely important.

13:51 – 14:26

Daniela Chan Viquez 

But a lot of the things that I've learned is that doing. Doing a research/the international project, or dealing with research teams, internationally, it's so much more than just doing the research. The research is like maybe a 25% of it and then the rest is politics, bureaucracy, money, legal agreements, research ethics boards, oh my god, the ethics are like crazy. This is like, really hard to deal with ethics. 

14:27 – 14:52

Daniela Chan Viquez 

And sometimes I felt like there's a lot of it's like playing a nice chess game. And you have to be very strategic on how you move your pieces and how you talk to people. And a lot, a lot of the times, there's, like, a lot of the times people, it's very willing to help you. 

14:53 – 15:12

Daniela Chan Viquez 

But sometimes they don't know how to help you. And sometimes they think that they are helping you in the right way. But, but, but they may not know how you need that help, because there's not really like a training for how to do international research or how to deal with international research teams. 

15:13 – 15:29

Daniela Chan Viquez 

In my particular experience, there's, a lot of times there's a language barrier, because my research project is in Spanish, but my PhD is in English, because I live in Canada, and, and my intervention that I'm running is in my home country. So it took us through with that. 

15:30 – 15:54

Daniela Chan Viquez 

So all the communications that go back and forth. They kind of have I'm kind of like the middleman for most of them, because most of, some of the people in Costa Rica speak English, but nobody from the Canadian team speaks Spanish. So it's, that's, that's like a hardship that we've had to kind of deal with. It takes a lot of brain power.

15:55 – 16:38

Daniela Chan Viquez 

And, it takes a lot of work to kind of figure out the dynamics on how you're going to make this thing kind of move, move on. Right. So I think that what, what it has been the hardest for kind/of me to learn is to go into the mindset that even though there's a lot of bureaucracy and like, obstacles, people do want to help you. People do want to make the project happen. But sometimes they don't have the training, or the knowledge on how to do these kind of international partnerships. 

16:39 – 17:06

Daniela Chan Viquez 

And then we kind of get stuck in kind of like, like the little things of the ethics is a big example. Like it's very hard to try to explain to ethics reviewers in Canada how things work in Costa Rica, they don't, they don't have to know that. There's, there's so there's, there's a lot about being open minded and communication and strategy, 

17:07 – 17:25

Daniela Chan Viquez 

But it’s yeah, it’s it's, it's always, it's always not only about the research, it entails so much more than that. And that's something that it's very important to, to keep in mind, I also learned that it's very hard to access information. 

17:26 – 18:04

Daniela Chan Viquez 

Because even though I've been trying to get more involved with kind of a global health community, I reached out to many different people. And there's, I haven't found a person that has done a project similar to what I am doing. So I found people that have experience doing projects that are like about interviews in different countries or questionnaires or, or, but not, not like as an intervention in a specific country funded by a different country, so

18:05 – 18:38

Daniela Chan Viquez 

 So it's, it's been hard to kind of, you kind of learn on the go. So but that's something that I wish, I had more like I had more people to, to talk to, or to ask questions, or like even in the ethics, the different like my project is a project that has to go through four different ethics boards, and none of these ethics boards have, like information on how to really navigate this international partnerships, like, like a specific template that I can follow, you know. 

18:39 – 18:57

Daniela Chan Viquez 

So that's, that's, that's something that I've had to learn kind of on the go. So, yeah, it would be nice to have more of that information out there. But yeah, those, those are some of my, my experiences. I don't know, I don't know if there's anything, but pretty much.

00:18:58 – 00:19:29

Ngwa Bernard

Okay. So you spoke of, you said it entails more than you know just what you're working with different teams, different teams from different countries, different cultures, and different languages. And personally, you seem to have had a lot of experience and learned a lot in the field. Do you have some personal approaches you use in this course of work, which you think you can recommend?

00:19:30 – 00:20:08

Daniela Chan Viquez

I, I think when you embark on these types of projects, you have to have a certain type of personality. So you kind of have to be very persistent. And I really don't know what's the difference between persistent and stubborn (laughs). Because I would say that it takes, it takes a lot of stubbornness to keep pushing, like I'm, I'm not gonna lie, there's different times, maybe like two or three times along this project, when I've been very, very close to just drop the whole thing and drop the program and drop the PhD because I just can't, anymore, like emotionally it’s very taxing.

00:20:09 – 00:20:48

Daniela Chan Viquez

And it's very challenging. So, So like a personal approach, like what I've been trying to do is trying to have, get more support, however, that support may look like, maybe rely more on my teammates or delegate more. Another thing that I've had to kind of use is, so it's really easy to get angry, because I am, or at least for me, because I am a Costa Rican that works in Canada. So I am familiar with both cultures. 

00:20:49 – 00:21:15

Daniela Chan Viquez

I understand where the Costa Rican team is coming from, but sometimes I lay things out, and I just don't get why the Canadian team wouldn't get it. Like, I'm like, why don't you understand this? Like, why is it so hard? But it is hard, because I am biased, because I already,  I, I  own my,  my, my home country culture, so, so it's very easy for me, but it's not easy for them. And that's okay. 

00:21:16 – 00:21:49

Daniela Chan Viquez

So sometimes you have to put like a hard stop and not get angry, and just try to be patient and understanding. And, and I think it's very important to, to kind of be kind. Even, even when things don't look that they deserve kindness, you still need to be kind and you have to really try to think where the other person on the other side of the screen, is coming from like, why is it like it's really, really down to communication, like so. 

00:21:50 – 00:22:23

Daniela Chan Viquez

Why is it that they're not understanding my point of view? How can I explain this better? Sometimes you just have to ask questions back like, Why? Why is it that you don't want to approve this the way it is, like what, what is that you're missing? So and the other way around, too, sometimes like, like Canadian teams sometimes are faster, like they work faster or they are like maybe they have like a more efficient working culture than the Costa Rican side. 

00:22:24 – 00:22:55

Daniela Chan Viquez

There's like a little bit more bureaucracy. So sometimes I'm like, But why? Why do you have to send this to 10 people to approve it. So, so is really just getting to that mindset that things will not go at the speed that you want them to go, they will go much more slower. But, but really, in the end it’s up to the people that work with you and you have to trust the people because otherwise is just like a chaotic mess. 

00:22:56 – 00:23:30

Daniela Chan Viquez

And there's really not much that you can do about it. So that's, that has been my approach for the past year. So take a deep breath, try to be kind, but sometimes you do have to advocate for yourself. So, so you have to be understanding, but you also have to hold your boundary and try to communicate better and that's, it's really hard to do. But,  but it seems to be the right or it's been working better so far. So I think I'll hold on to that.

00:23:31 – 00:23:57

Bernard Ngwa

Oh, great. I think you've dived into the second part of my question, because I wanted to ask how you, how you manage tension working with these different international teams. And if you have some recommendations for someone that you've spoken about that a little bit, I don't know, if you have something else on that? How you manage tension in these international teams?

00:23:58 – 00:24:18

Daniela Chan Viquez

Well, I, I do have a pretty amazing team. And that is really key. Like, you have to pick a team, like if I because I'm kind of the driver of the project, right. So I need to have a supportive team. And it's very, like, that's, I think it's like the key and most important part.

00:24:19 – 00:24:41

Daniela Chan Viquez

You have to have people that you trust, that you like how they work, that you can work with, because you have to delegate a lot. And you need a team that is supportive of your work, and that you can also be supportive of what they're doing in their specific roles. So my advisory committee, they are amazing ladies, and they are super supportive.

00:24:42 – 00:25:08

Daniela Chan Viquez

My supervisor, she is great. And even though this is her first international research project, she has been so, so supportive of, of my personal journey, not, not, she's always been supportive of the project, but she's been supportive of me as a PhD student. And that has been really, really important and key for me not to just drop everything and run away in the middle of the program.

00:25:09 – 00:25:28

Daniela Chan Viquez

And also my Costa Rican team, I, it's, it's really amazing, like I have, I have a right hand down in Costa Rica, that like she does all these things that I cannot do because of, of geographical distance. And she's like the person that,  that supports me. 

00:25:29 – 00:25:44

Daniela Chan Viquez

I also have the rest of the team, everyone in the team, I can fully and blindly trust them, that they are doing their jobs and that they're going to do a good job. And that I can have like easy communication with them. So that's really key. 

00:25:45 – 00:26:15

Daniela Chan Viquez

Another way to manage tension I, I do go to bi-weekly therapy sessions. And there's really that that helps me a lot because it is my time where I just blow steam and I don't feel judgment by anybody, because it's this person that I pay her to listen to my troubles. So that is really, really amazing. I know not everybody has or, or can do that. But that has certainly helped me.

00:26:16 – 00:26:47

Daniela Chan Viquez

Not only with this project, but with like kind of my, my personal journey. And I also try to have like a very set schedule because I do have a two year old daughter and obviously she is my, my number one priority and I do have to manage my emotions and my, my time so when I'm on my working hours, then when I close my computer, I have to leave all the emotions of the work at my desk

00:26:48 – 00:27:12

Daniela Chan Viquez

Because, then I have to go pick up my daughter, be with my daughter, feed her, dress her, play with her, whatever and, and it's just very easy to be in a bad mood or drag on, or just think the whole day like oh, “I should have done this oh, I didn't send this email, oh this, this situation it's so stressful with the ethics board or with the with the legal department”. But, 

00:27:13 – 00:27:45

Daniela Chan Viquez

but work has to stay at my desk because personally that's what my family needs from me. So those, those are just like my, my personal, my personal experiences and what works for me. It may not be what worked for everybody. But yeah, those three things. How I would say that it's what works for me to manage tension, like have like a great team that you can rely on. 

00:27:46 – 00:28:24

Daniela Chan Viquez

Leave your work at your desk when you're finished. But also leave,  Leave your ideas, right at your desk, which is not, which is not easy to do. Right? You try to not be thinking about work the whole day. Sometimes it's hard because it's kind of like an autopilot mode that you go, but you have to put a stop to it. And then yeah, I think, I think those are kind of what works for me but for other people who knows, like maybe they like to do exercise or stuff like that. I'm not like the exercise type of person Um, but yeah, those are my five cents.

00:28:25 – 00:28:53

Ngwa Bernard

Oh, great. I think pretty much we have covered most of what we had for today. But just rounding up. Last question, unless you probably have something to add Daniela. Now you spoke of working with international teams with different languages, do you have some personal skills you have developed, for instance, learning different languages, which has helped you in this journey?

00:28:54 – 00:29:25

Daniela Chan Viquez

Well, I think more, it's not, it's not only about building all of those kinds of, like soft skills, you know, like time management, team management, be like an effective communicator, all of those things, because that's very, kind of, that's not so much about like the international research, that's kind of research in general, you kind of have those, or built on those skills to be able to do research, effectively.

00:29:26 – 00:29:51

Daniela Chan Viquez

But I think it's more about learning how to wear or that's, that's been my experience, how to wear different hats. So  sometimes I have to wear my Costa Rican hat, sometimes I have to wear my Canadian hat, sometimes I have to wear.My transcriptionist or translator hat. Sometimes I have to wear my lawyer hat, or my ethics board hat or

00:29:52 – 00:30:38

Daniela Chan Viquez

So there's, there's like, a lot of, of things that you have to do in, in, to make, to make the project run. So this was something that I didn't know. And that I was not not expecting legal, legal agreements and legal stuff has been like a big part of it. I have had to kind of draft and revise a legal agreement between the two institutions and translate the thing and revise the translation, and then send it to a to do an official translation, and then revise the translation to make sure that, that it said, what it should send, but I have no legal background.

00:30:39 – 00:31:09

Daniela Chan Viquez

And I speak two languages, but I'm not like a translator. So that was something really that I kind of have to develop and learn as, as we go. I also had to learn a lot about admin processes on how to, like, get a research project approved, I've had to learn about how to transfer funds internationally from a Canadian grant to a different university.

00:31:10 – 00:31:45

Daniela Chan Viquez

So there's that like, opening open bank accounts, doing money conversions, like those are a lot of things that nobody tell you that you're gonna have to do. You're like, yeah, sure, let's look at this, we're talking about a project that, that it's obviously short on budget, and we have like a million dollar grant, probably we've had, we've hired people to do these things. But when you have to try to work with a specific budget, then, then you do most of the things and you have to wear most of the hats.

00:31:46 – 00:32:40

Daniela Chan Viquez

So that's, I guess, the main, the main skill that I would say you have to have, you have to be able to be like kind of a chameleon and be able to take on different jobs or tasks on even if you don't have the background for it. And you have to kind of learn very quickly what,  like how is it supposed to be done? But also have a lot of support people right? It's not like I didn't have the support of a proper lawyer, right. There was a proper lawyer helping me throughout the whole process. But I did have to, like, step into, into the legal part and the ethics review part. So, so then that what they say is like kind of the main skill that, that, that I've had to learn how to, how to wear many, many different hats.

00:32:41 – 00:32:50

Bernard Ngwa

All right, thank you so much, Daniela. We have covered everything we planned for today. Unless probably you have some final talk, you want to give us.

00:32:51 – 00:33:34

Daniela Chan Viquez

No, I think, I think I've pretty much like said, like a lot of what has been my experience, I will just kind of encourage, like, I'm very open to talk to anybody that has questions. So if anybody listens to this, and they find themselves in a similar situation, or, or they have questions about, I don't know, if they're struggling with something and they want like a second opinion, or if they just want to connect, that's also fine by me, I'm very happy to, to share whichever little experience I have with,  with other people going through the same road or interested in global health research or international research project because that's certainly that  

00:33:35 – 00:33:49

Daniela Chan Viquez

That's something that I certainly lack, didn't, didn't have a lot of access to people that have gone through these experiences. And that's something that I would have liked to have, so I'm very open to it. Just shoot me an email. And we'll get in touch.

00:33:50 – 00:33:58

[ Music fades in ]

Bernard Ngwa

All right, great. Well, thank you for your time, Daniela and definitely we’ll keep in touch and we'll keep connected to you. Thank you so much.

00:33:59 – 00:34:00

Daniela Chan Viquez

Thank you guys for having me today.

00:34:03 – 00:34:58

Bernard Ngwa

Thank you for listening to  today’s episode and please  do check out our previous episodes. If you have any questions, or like to know more about the PIRL network, you can reach us on our email address which is PIRL, that is PIRL@utoronto.ca. Thanks for listening. Ciao

[Music fades out]

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