Mendeley Advisor Dr Richard Tunstall is a Lecturer in Enterprise at the University of Leeds. He recently used Mendeley’s community features to support an innovative multi-disciplinary workshop, and here’s how he got on:

I organised a two-day residential workshop focussing on social and cultural aspects of entrepreneurship; a relatively novel focus for social science research, which is building momentum as a multi-disciplinary community.

This event brought together a unique mix of researchers, who wouldn’t normally meet together at established academic conferences. 80 attendees took part and the event led to the creation of a new Entrepreneurship Studies Network, which was supported by Mendeley’s community before the workshop even began.

I set up a new group on Mendeley where we provided advance key readings from journals which all participants were asked to read before they attended, in order to set the agenda. As keynote speakers agreed to take part, we invited them to add in a short-list of their own recommended reading on the subject. Finally, we opened the group up to contributions from everyone after the event, inviting them to continue posting papers they’ve written and recommended on the subject.

Using Mendeley has supported us in forming a new international community of researchers ranging from renowned professors to early-stage PhD students. People joined us from all over the world, including the USA, UK, Europe, Australia and Canada, and some have also gone on to create their own private collaboration groups to work on new projects together. The discussion area also provides an opportunity to share ideas and promote opportunities to meet at new conferences. The group remains open to everyone, so if you’re interested, why not join us?