North-South Research Collaborations Research Articles

Turning the tables or business as usual? COVID-19 as a catalyst in North–South research collaborations

Since February 2020, we have witnessed COVID-19 profoundly disturb ongoing research dynamics – including research collaborations between the Global North and the Global South. Reduced international and regional mobility obliged research collaborations to reinvent their modalities. The role of field-based researchers (those physically ‘there’) has never been more crucial. This article draws on the testimonies of researchers from the African Great Lakes region to reflect on the positionality of field-based researchers in North–South research collaborations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Their embeddedness in the field foregrounded their complementary strengths in interactions with scholars from the Global North. We also illustrate how vulnerabilities – both unstable employment and field-related risks – were unevenly shared by partners in the Global South and the Global North. In conclusion, the COVID-19 experience inspired us to adhere to new collaboration modalities that move beyond post-colonial dynamics in North–South research collaborations.

North-South research collaboration during complex global emergencies: Qualitative knowledge production and sharing during COVID-19

Large multinational teams of academics and activist-practitioners that span the Global North-South divide have become common in qualitative research because of the reliance of field of peace and conflict studies on “local” knowledge and expertise. Complex global emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, present the opportunity to (re)shape and (re)consider these endeavors in key some ways. This article focuses on the involvement of South-based activist-practitioners in three large North-South collaborations, one pre-pandemic (Beyond Words: Implementing Latin American Truth Commission Recommendations), one ongoing when the pandemic began (Gender, Justice, and Security Hub), and one launched during the pandemic (Truth Commissions and Sexual Violence: African and Latin American Experiences). Drawing on center-periphery framework, we adopt an autoethnographic approach, to reflect on how the pandemic has not only reinforced existing structural and institutional asymmetries through reduced funding, professional uncertainty, and personal loss and insecurity but also added some new ethical concerns. This reality has tested both our capacity and commitment to work toward the decolonization of knowledge in the field. In making this argument, we seek to contribute to the discussion on research ethics and the politics of knowledge production and sharing in qualitative peace and conflict research.

Experiences of inequality in international collaborative research – Perspectives from environmental and sustainability scholars from Ghana, West Africa

Global north and south research partnerships are essential for building research capacity in the global south and for generating new knowledge to address complex socio-environmental problems. However, insights from various disciplines, particularly global health research, suggest that north-south research collaborations often reproduce unequal power relations and outcomes. To mitigate these, some international funding organizations have produced guidelines that promote ethical practice in collaborative research. Despite these measures, significant gaps exist in understanding how the experiences and perspectives of Global South scholars, particularly those in the field of environmental sciences, shapes discourses on unequal north-south research partnerships and the ethical guidelines developed to address disparities. To bridge this gap, we conducted explorative qualitative research focused on understanding the experiences of environmental science and sustainability researchers from Ghana in international collaborative research. Our findings revealed a general optimism among scientists regarding the benefits of international collaborative for making impactful contributions in the global south, expanding professional networks, opening opportunities to publish in high impact journals and developing new research skills. At the same time, our findings also indicate that pervasive forms of inequality centered around lack of recognition, poor clarity of roles, disrespect, unequal resource sharing, poor communication, and non-adherence to contractual agreements persist. We contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on research inequality by proposing a framework to guide the management, design, and implementation of north-south research partnerships. Our proposed framework serves as a starting point toward identifying potential unequal and unethical issues that often arise in north-south research partnerships.

Towards decolonising higher education: a case study from a UK university

This article presents initiatives undertaken by the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (GHSM) at King’s College London (KCL), exploring avenues to decolonise higher education institutions (HEI). HEI must integrate anti-racism agendas, challenge the European-centric academic knowledge domination, and dismantle power asymmetries. During the academic year 2021, GHSM executed (1) a gap analysis of undergraduate modules, (2) a course on decolonising research methods taught by global scholars to 40 Global South and North university students who completed pre- and post-course surveys, and (3) semi-structured interviews with 11 academics, and a focus group with four students exploring decolonising HEI; findings were thematically analysed. (1) Gap analysis revealed a tokenistic use of Black and minority ethnic and women authors across modules’ readings. (2) The post-course survey showed that 68% strongly agreed the course enhanced their decolonisation knowledge. (3) The thematic analysis identified themes: (1) Decolonisation is about challenging colonial legacies, racism, and knowledge production norms. (2) Decolonisation is about care, inclusivity, and compensation. (3) A decolonised curriculum should embed an anti-racism agenda, reflexive pedagogies, and life experiences involving students and communities. (4) HEI are colonial, exclusionary constructs that should shift to transformative and collaborative ways of thinking and knowing. (5) To decolonise research, we must rethink the hierarchy of knowledge production and dissemination and the politics of North-South research collaborations. Decolonising HEI must be placed within a human rights framework. HEI should integrate anti-racism agendas, give prominence to indigenous and marginalised histories and ways of knowing, and create a non-hierarchical educational environment, with students leading the decolonisation process.

Uncovering power asymmetries in North-South research collaborations – An example from sustainability research in Tanzania

North - South collaboration between scientists and collaborators is increasingly prominent and promoted in research. This study examines power dynamics within a North-South research collaboration project conducted between institutions in Tanzania and Germany. The research design is guided by postcolonial considerations of knowledge production and seeks to amplify underrepresented voices from the South. The analysis reveals power manifestations in project setup, processes, and outcomes, through three perspectives: resources, social relations, and discourses. The study confirms the prevailing impression of the Northern partner as the donor and conceptualizer, directing the research path, while the Southern partner remains in a peripheral position as the local implementor. Both parties benefit from the collaboration, but the Northern partner gains more in terms of academic recognition and reproduction, furthering the asymmetrical power distance. This study concludes that to approach the ideal mutual knowledge co-production, collaborations should reconsider funding structures, question ways of knowing, increase the importance of equal capacity building, and challenge established Western academic knowledge production structures.

Dissonant intimacies: Coloniality and the failures of South–South collaboration

North–South research collaborations have come to include both an epistemic and ethical promise – of disrupting hierarchies, inequalities and asymmetries in global knowledge production. In practice, however, these have been ridden with limits, tension and failure. The ‘South–South’ has emerged as a worthy foil: an easy repository of positive affects and of decolonial futurity. This article turns to a feminist collaborative research initiative that seemed primed to fulfil these promises, but in fact, failed to do so. A partnership between African and Indian feminist scholars did not provide meaningful and reciprocal intellectual exchange. On the contrary, it powerfully revealed the coloniality of knowledge and power in higher education and how it manifested, differently, in two distinct locales in the Global South. This partnership constituted less of a shared ground, than one of complex and uneven relationships – a terrain of dissonant intimacies. It is not surprising that these were Southern scholars working in marginalised areas of research, like gender and sexuality. Such a double marginalisation produces specific sets of choices – and ambivalent desires – when it comes to being included in an unequal global epistemic order (and responding to neoliberal demands). This article contributes to larger debates on decolonising higher education, by shifting the scale from the North–South to the complexities of knowledge-making and power within and across the South.

International Research and Philanthropy

International Research and Philanthropy

Managing North-South Research Collaboration Projects During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Researchers from the Global North and South have collaborated for decades to conduct cutting-edge interdisciplinary research. The tools they used to manage their research projects remained virtually unchanged until the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak early in 2020. Since then, a lot has changed, including the nature and dynamics of research collaboration. How are researchers and project managers adapting to this change? Survey data, semi-structured interviews, and personal accounts from 102 respondents from 33 countries are used in this empirical study to investigate the impact of the pandemic on research collaboration projects. An independent non-parametric t-test revealed a significant difference in the research collaboration infrastructure and home environment between Global North and global South collaborators. The findings have practical implications for people involved in collaborative research projects, funding agencies, project management professionals, and universities interested in pursuing or sustaining North-South research collaboration during the pandemic.

Ageing population and society: a scientometric analysis

The ageing population and society (APS) nexus is one of the key grand challenges of this millennium. And yet, the systematic analysis of scholarly literature on the APS nexus has remained under the radar. This study responds to this gap and employs a quantitative approach through a scientometric analysis of literature on the APS nexus to inform policy discussions and guide future research directions. This study adopts quantitative scientometric methods to examine the APS literature (n = 566) between 2011 and 2020 found in the Scopus database. The analysis reveals key research topics and recognizes the most important articles, authors, publication outlets, institutions, and countries in the field. The findings indicate that while issues such as ageing population, gender, quality of life, and socio-economic aspects of ageing have received significant interest, social exclusion of older adults, age diversity, social policy, and the eldercare workforce have received less attention. As challenges associated with the APS nexus will continue to gain currency in the future, this paper discusses the implications of the findings on (a) future research direction and (b) north-south research collaboration. The analysis shown in this paper should be of interest to scholars and policymakers interested in addressing the challenges associated with the APS nexus.

Towards Decolonising Research Ethics: From One-off Review Boards to Decentralised North–South Partnerships in an International Development Programme

Contemporary North–South research collaborations are fraught with power relations originating in colonialism. Debates about research ethics have tended to turn around the “procedural ethics” formal model and the “everyday ethics” practical model. We build on that to suggest a second debate that scrutinises ethics and power relations not only in the researcher–researched relationship but also in the relationships within research teams and ethics review boards. The research asked: how can we shift power in research to decolonise research and build more equitable partnerships? We explored this with data obtained through collaborative autoethnography in a multi-country development research programme, Evidence and Collaboration for Inclusive Development (ECID). This included regular self-reflective meetings, visual methods, a self-evaluation survey, and blogs addressing power issues. Coordinated from London, the research had all the cards to adopt a ‘colonial’ gaze in which the North would ‘research’ the South. The case narrates the journey of the research team to decentralise power in the programme, which included sharing control over the selection of research topics, and the research design, budget, and publications. Drawing from the lessons learned from the research approach that was adopted in ECID, this paper offers an 8-step model towards decolonising research ethics.

North–South research collaborations: An empirical evaluation against principles of transboundary research

AbstractMotivationTransboundary research collaborations (TRCs) are critical in supporting evidence‐based actions to address complex global issues, yet there remains a lack of empirical knowledge that would detail how TRCs are organized, how activities are facilitated, and how actors interact.PurposeWe address this knowledge gap by evaluating a North–South TRC against the 11 principles for TRCs defined by the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE).Methods and approachUsing personal accounts, content analysis, and semi‐structured interviews/surveys, our evaluation casts light on how the process of running a TRC in the 21st century is enacted from the perspective of the individual.FindingsOur results and discussion provide the basis for a more probing and systematic case for and against contemporary TRCs, their underlying value structures and ways of working, as well as the dimensions that are lacking.Policy implicationsEvaluation of TRCs must include the experience of all the actors involved in the TRC and not only the outcomes they produce; transdisciplinarity cannot be viewed as the only way to solve general development issues, but must be carefully considered in order not to mask underlying issues of inequality and poor ethics; and the ring‐fencing of funding for a specific purpose or TRC does not negate the need to scrutinize the activities that are undertaken in the name of the TRC.

Research in forced displacement: guidance for a feminist and decolonial approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened inequities and undermined health, human rights, and gender equality for forcibly displaced populations The ongoing pandemic has also exposed persisting power hierarchies between researchers and forcibly displaced populations These populations experience power asymmetries in their position as the so-called beneficiaries of humanitarian research and action, and are often excluded from participation in decision making about the research intended to benefit their communities Forcibly displaced women and girls are consistently categorised as vulnerable and needing protection or rescuing, which takes away their agency and power of action, while risking exploitation or abuse by the same humanitarian actors that supposedly aim to protect them We believe that applying a feminist lens is not merely about demolishing problematic structures, but also about collaboratively building up new ones for a more just world (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

(Un)packing Baggage: A Reflection on the ‘Battle Over Ideas’ and Labour Hierarchies in Collaborative North–South Research

North–South research collaboration involves navigating two terrains, which have, in the past, been areas of bitter contestation. One area is to negotiate the unequal power dynamics that shape what ‘partnership’ means and determine the division of labour in the research collaboration. The other is a tussle over concepts that underpin research, which may have different meanings or no meaning at all in the local context. In this essay, I share my experiences on both areas as a researcher based in the global South. I contend that these power dynamics not only reinforce the extractive nature of research, but also undermine different ways of knowing and registering that are not part of dominant intellectual toolkits in the global North. I conclude that the hierarchy of knowledge generation embedded in North–South collaboration hinders the creativity and intellectual advancement of researchers and also diminishes the quality of the knowledge that is produced.

Disrupting habits of North–South research collaboration: Learning in co-authoring

One of the frequently mentioned manifestations of asymmetrical relationships in North–South research collaboration has been challenges in co-authoring joint international publications. We critically reflect on our attempt to counteract this tendency and analyse a process of producing an edited volume on practices of citizenship in East Africa, which reports selected findings of a four-year collaborative research project between Tanzanian, Ugandan and Finnish academics. The project was based on philosophical pragmatism, and especially John Dewey’s ideas concerning learning as reformulation of habits. Consequently, our reflection of learning presented in this paper draws from the pragmatist notions of habit and disruption. We analyse how some prevalent habits in support of asymmetrical knowledge production emerged and the ways in which we attempted to reformulate them in our own practices by initiating continuous dialogue within the team, introduction of writing retreats and offering short-term fellowships.

Ethical Evaluation and Action Research: Toward New North-South Research Collaborations?

This case study examines the author's experience gaining ethics approval for an action research project, to build capacity for new North-South research collaborations among graduate students trained in health and environment. It is argued that the ethics review process and action research framework seem to talk past each other. While the former may reinforce the divide between researchers and researched communities, potentially exacerbating North-South power asymmetries, the latter may presume that such asymmetries are overcome too easily through the good intentions of northern researchers, rather than through the work of southern actors to take back power. Considerations are offered for more realistic approaches to ethical North-South research collaborations.

Searching for Macro-Meso-Micro-Level Links in Studies of North-South Research Collaborations

Scientific collaboration between Northern and Southern researchers and development programs for research capacity-building have received new attention of practitioners and scholars during the last decades. This essay review takes four recent publications on North-South research cooperation and development politics as a starting point to ask for possible links between macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of social analysis that has found renewed interest in the sociology of science literature. The approach has the advantage to heuristically systematize the anthropological, sociological and policy-driven approaches chosen by the editors and authors of the books under review. Moreover, the focus on links between the three levels adds to the conceptual interaction of sociology of science and the science policy fields to estimate the effects of science governance in international and especially in asymmetrical relations with different access to resources.

"You Travel Faster Alone, but Further Together": Learning From a Cross Country Research Collaboration From a British Council Newton Fund Grant.

Providing universal health coverage (UHC) through better maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health (MNCAH) can benefit both parties through North–South research collaborations. This paper describes lessons learned from bringing together early career researchers, tutors, consultants and mentors from the United Kingdom, Kenya, and South Africa to work in multi-disciplinary teams in a capacity-building workshop in Johannesburg, co-ordinated by senior researchers from the three partner countries. We recruited early career researchers and research users from a range of sectors and institutions in the participating countries and offered networking sessions, plenary lectures, group activities and discussions. To encourage bonding and accommodate cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary partners, we asked participants to respond to questions relating to research priorities and interventions in order to allocate them into multidisciplinary and cross-country teams. A follow up meeting took place in London six months later. Over the five day initial workshop, discussions informed the development of four draft research proposals. Intellectual collaboration, friendship and respect were engendered to sustain future collaborations, and we were able to identify factors which might assist capacity-building funders and organizers in future. This was a modestly funded brief intervention, with a follow-up made possible through the careful stewardship of resources and volunteerism. Having low and middle-income countries in the driving seat was a major benefit but not without logistic and financial challenges. Lessons learned and follow-up are described along with recommendations for future funding of partnerships schemes.

Making North–South Research Collaborations Work

Making North–South Research Collaborations Work

A Sociology of International Research Partnerships for Sustainable Development

In recent years, the partnership concept has shaped not only international development assistance, but also the organisation of knowledge production processes in development research. This article looks beyond the rhetoric of the partnership concept by discussing the institutional conditions and individual choices that shape North–South research collaboration in the context of an international development research network. By drawing on ideas from the Sociology of Knowledge, and by distinguishing among three distinct lenses on power, the article analyses discourses and practices shaping working relations between unequal partners. Research partnerships are not a universal remedy for structural inequalities and epistemological hegemonies. However, they can offer important opportunities for direct encounters between people and institutions from different scientific traditions and policy contexts, which can lead to the emergence of more respectful and reflexive forms of knowledge production in contemporary development research. Depuis quelques années, le partenariat est un concept essentiel non seulement de l’aide au développement international, mais aussi de l’organisation de la production de connaissances dans le domaine de la recherche sur le développement. Dans cet article nous nous situons au delà du discours sur le concept de partenariat et examinons les conditions institutionnelles et les choix individuels qui déterminent les collaborations Nord-Sud au sein d’un réseau de recherche international pour le développement. En s’inspirant des idées de la sociologie du savoir et en examinant le pouvoir de trois points de vue différents, cet article analyse les discours et les pratiques qui déterminent les relations de travail entre des partenaires inégaux. Le partenariat de recherche n’est pas un remède universel aux problèmes d’inégalités structurelles et d’hégémonie épistémologique. Cependant, les partenariats de recherche offrent d’importantes opportunités de rencontres entre individus et institutions ayant des traditions scientifiques et politiques différentes, ce qui peut faciliter le développement de pratiques de production de savoir plus respectueuses et réflexives dans le domaine de la recherche contemporaine pour le développement.

Concentrations of Toxic Metals in Blood and Cord Blood of Delivering Women from Three Indian Ocean Coastal Communities, South Africa. North-South Research Collaboration

Concentrations of Toxic Metals in Blood and Cord Blood of Delivering Women from Three Indian Ocean Coastal Communities, South Africa. North-South Research Collaboration