International collaboration has always been essential to boost social and personal growth and broaden one’s horizons, hence, improving both a researcher’s personality and career. This is true especially in such a dynamic, rapid-changing field such as drug addiction, where this collaboration can consolidate the scientific activity and exchange of expertise which eventually improves methods and outcomes.

This presentation adds to the other 2 presentations in the symposium and reflect-from the speaker’s point of view-on the cross-cultural issues within different collaboration opportunities with international research partners. The presentation will draw examples from projects on Over-The-Counter (OTC) and prescription drug use in Jordan, Finland, Iraq, Palestine, UK, and Yemen. Moreover, light will be shed on the most important lessons learnt in the past 20 years of working in the field of drug abuse research in different settings (e.g. community pharmacy, addiction rehabilitations centers, refugee camps). The speaker will highlight the different shapes of collaboration (e.g. research, teaching, joint student supervision, capacity building) while considering how to maximise benefits while not underestimating and how to overcome the challenges.