Bridging Cultures to Build Solutions: Addressing Ethnocentrism in Engineering Teams

In global research environments, effective intercultural collaboration is essential for producing innovative and responsible solutions. Yet ethnocentrism, the tendency to privilege one’s own cultural norms, continues to hinder communication, trust, and coordinated problem-solving in international teams. As cross-border research partnerships expand, cultural expectations increasingly shape how teams share knowledge, negotiate decisions, and handle uncertainty or conflict. For example, differing norms around hierarchy, feedback, or silence in meetings can easily be misinterpreted, reducing efficiency and cohesion. This is of particular relevance for engineering teams operating across borders, where effective communication and cultural awareness are essential for innovation, problem-solving, and project success. The seminar will highlight the need for research teams to develop a “negotiated culture”: a shared set of practices and assumptions co-constructed by members from diverse backgrounds.
It will explore how such negotiated cultures evolve in collaborations (with a focus on engineering), how intercultural trust is built, even within tight project timelines, and how multicultural teams can recognise and overcome ethnocentric biases. By moving beyond traditional Anglo-Saxon frameworks, it suggests ways of fostering intercultural competence and strengthening inclusive, high-performing international research teams.