This article was originally published by Integration and Implementation Insights on August 27th, 2024.

What are some of the challenges that researchers from the Global South face when engaging in development research initiatives, and how can resetting the relationships that underpin North-South collaborations help? What are the pivotal areas where change is needed?

Challenges

The main concerns for many researchers in Global South-based institutions are around the deep-rooted structural challenges that underpin the research for development space, such as:

  • funding dependence on external sources,
  • insufficient national expenditures on research,
  • lack of agency in the design and implementation of research projects,
  • publication pressures built on problematic Global North “output”-driven demands,
  • competing incentives for promoting and achieving policy uptake.

Unsurprisingly, these systemic challenges further exacerbate existing inequalities within research partnerships that span the Global South and North. There are, however, encouraging signs of progress in addressing these inequalities, driven by the widespread frustration with power imbalances amongst Global South researchers, and a growing desire for progressive change amongst research for development actors in the Global North. There is also increasing momentum for changes in policies and practices relating to funding arrangements, project design, and support to emerging collaboration; these have the potential to be truly transformative.

Unfortunately, many funders still display risk-averse behaviours, which constrain opportunities to do things differently. Few research actors have actively gathered evidence about what happens as a result of innovative and experimental modes of collaboration. There are also, as yet, few examples of meaningful accountability mechanisms that enable Global South researchers to hold Northern-based collaborators or funders to account for claims of ‘equitable partnership’ made on their behalf.

Spaces for change for systemic transformation

Achieving sectoral, systemic change in the development research system across the global divide, and in doing so, changing existing power asymmetries, raises the stakes for research actors in the Global South. A systemic change agenda needs to be reimagined with Southern priorities at the centre. We have identified three “spaces of change”, which each offer opportunities for catalysing and coordinating actions, and achieving transformation in the wider system:

  1. funding practices and norms,
  2. academic rules and incentives,
  3. publication and dissemination practices.

Actions related to research funding practices

Low spending on research in the Global South reduces levels of support available to research which is relevant to these societies. This poses a challenge for Southern researchers with limited resources, often raising doubts as to the sustainability of research systems within which they are located. While some Global South government structures exist for research funding, these are usually insufficient, leading to dependency on external sources which are discretionary and tied to geopolitical narratives.

Key actions include:

  • diversifying funding sources that can help counter the over-dependence of research on external funding. Widening funding to include both public and private contributions is one way to enhance sustainability of research within the Global South.
  • Southern-led agenda setting and direct funding of Southern institutions. Reform of current funding practices through “localisation” approaches, for example, can help support rather than deter collaboration. These actions help promote trust-based relationships, countering also the risk averse behaviours of funders. Intermediary organisations can also help bridge the gap between researchers and funders through knowledge co-creation, demand-driven capacity strengthening building, managing consortia, and de-risking work.

Actions related to academic rules and incentives

The incentives and rules applied in academic institutions across the Global North permeate research systems in the Global South through national policies on science and technology, or where internal policies in research institutions copy the incentives in the Global North. Researchers in the Global North may perpetuate unequal relationships with Global South partners through practices that are geared more toward their own career incentives, with Global South researchers designated as data collectors, and experiencing inadequate recognition of their contributions as co-researchers and authors of publications.

Key actions include:

  • promotion of research assessment practices that define the impact from the perspective of the Global South,
  • the emergence of new quality and excellence frameworks among funders,
  • greater accountability towards the users whose interests research is intended to serve.

Actions related to publications and dissemination

The dissemination of research and the rules of the game around academic publications mediate which knowledge is made visible, how it is used, and by whom. It is also a space in which a small number of publishing companies based in the Global North have consolidated a large amount of power in a primarily commercial enterprise. This reduces opportunities for actors in the Global South to get published and to access knowledge, even knowledge produced within their countries. The English language continues to dominate in the global research ecosystem. Movements such as open access and open science are revolutionising practices in these spaces, yet these have traditionally been disconnected from discussions around equity.

Key actions include:

  • shifting research funding away from large-scale for-profit publishers, and supporting a process to create alternative infrastructures,
  • developing new data sources for bibliometrics. Metrics used to assess career paths, science and technology policies, and research activities need to be revised, challenging reliance on centralised models of publishing by identifying and promoting new metrics that provide a more comprehensive understanding of research productivity and impact.

Conclusion

The ultimate aim of the actions in these three spaces for change is to produce impactful and socially relevant research that improves lives and livelihoods, especially the lives of those who are excluded and marginalised. In practice, this means having a direct impact on how research is done, used, disseminated, valued, and funded. Paying attention to all of these would, ideally, strengthen the agency of Global South actors in the design and implementation of the research process, increase value recognition of Southern knowledge, and support the sustainability of Southern research institutions.

Achieving this aim requires collective action and joined-up efforts that are shaped by contextual realities, and underpinned by power-aware, reflective, and action-oriented thinking. Such collaborative efforts can be achieved – through actions and accountability in the three spaces described above – by building coalitions, aggregating efforts and evidence, and also steering the discourse, particularly toward priorities from the Global South.

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