What do we do – and what are we not doing?

We are not complimentary, because we are not a (free) add-on to your project; we are a project ourselves. We are not complementary in the sense of filling up any insufficiencies or incapacities that complementary food is given for, and we do not make your work complete by providing what’s missing as if being a complimentary angle or colour. We support you, but we are not your assistant. We may be squiring you by opening and holding a door for you, but we will not carry your luggage. Neither are we collateral or concomitant as if you had no choice. We do not even accompany or take care of you, because you are self-confident and know what you are doing. And – of course we are not chaperoning or supervising you, since we are not in charge of you.

In a way, we may be escorting you – not to come in handy or to be ready for pleasure, but rather convoying you like a convoy ship that has been delegated to a group of other ships all performing a specific function on a common mission without diverting their expertise towards overall tasks not scheduled for them individually but in favour of them all – not meaning that we are protecting you as we do not have any weapons on board.

So, let’s boil it down to this: We do not complement you, because we are a research project ourselves – we rather do complemental research to build and shape a community of various projects engaged in research for a common goal.

How would you call what we are doing? Any idea how to explain it to a humble German?