Equitable Partnerships & International Collaborations

Equitable research partnerships and international collaborations call for the recognition to redress structural inequalities and inequities that crosscut the global research, publishing and donor landscape. What remains all the more urgent and fundamental is the need to redress relations of power in knowledge-making (beyond every research practices), and the embedded colonialities of science production that perpetuate historic inequities.  

The effects of parachute or helicopter research from high income spaces and urban centres that engage so-called Southern spaces or under-represented regional ´peripheries´ with little or no meaningful exchange with local institutions and researchers is often cited as a prevalent structural injustice. Tellingly, some forms of science diplomacy remain embedded or wedded to/in such structures. 

Countries in the majority world are increasingly beginning to institutionalise research permits and other forms of field-based licensing and formalised access (permissions). The Cape Town Statement in 2022 bears testimony to the how progressively majority-world countries that have been affected by neo-colonialist, extractive practices of science production have collectively taken action.

Today, the involvement of local research collaborators and teams in international publications for example, are a welcomed and mandated requirement by donors and funding lines. Yet, there are other instances in which institutions barely play lip-service to principles around knowledge co-generation and collective ownership, often leading to intra-project conflicts and damaging long-term institutional relationships.

We offer workshops for project teams and institutions spanning a range of topics that cover collaborative project design, the principles of knowledge co-production (drawing on decolonial and other liberatory approaches), and concrete methods-based workshops in participatory formats in the case of fieldwork. These may include practical group sessions on: Engaging communities; Best practices in the redistribution of power; Building research capacity, and on understanding gendered and other forms of intersectional inclusivity.