To the uninitiated, it may not be obvious why someone in their first post-doc position would want to establish a collaboration with a scientist in another, perhaps distant, lab. Look at it from the point of view of your prospective future employer. They want to see a candidate who will be able to contribute to their scientific community; someone who can network successfully with their colleagues abroad, for instance. Get collaborating and you will be demonstrating the very skills required for getting on well in twenty-first century science. The tiny number of single-author research papers published these days is testimony to the need to collaborate.

That's all very well, but what's in it for you? Science can be very competitive, so you may be understandably reluctant to share your results or even draw attention to your presence in the field, at least until your work is in some shape to publish. Collaboration is all about efficiency – reducing the time taken to produce valuable results. Translated, that could mean that you might get to do the really interesting experiments that you never dreamed you'd have time to do before the end of your project. Even those you currently view as competitors can sometimes become collaborators. The best example of this is where you have something they don't. Then you can start to bargain for access to what they have that you need, be it results, expertise, equipment, or whatever.