Search

In her recent article, Bender offers a timely reflection on research-practice collaborations (RPCs). In this commentary, we expand on Bender's main findings by reflecting on RPCs within the context of broader trends towards knowledge co-production. We offer some ethical reflections on two particular aspects of co-production that are relevant to any collaboration involving 'practice': epistemic equality and community participation. Both are necessary to shift the axis of these collaborations towards a mode of knowledge production that is action-oriented and empowering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of historic inequities between Northern and Southern scholars, the UK's Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) calls for "meaningful and equitable" research partnerships between UK-based academics and partners in the Global South. This paper draws on qualitative data from three workshops in the Ethiopia, Rwanda and the UK to interrogate GCRF funding criteria from the perspectives of African-based research partners. The GCRF criteria are considered with respect to African partners' experiences of, and aspirations from, such international research partnerships in order to enrich and extend ongoing debates about power relations in development research. The study finds that GCRF criteria do address many of the familiar historic concerns of African partners, while also identifying ways in which this and similar funding schemes may unintentionally reproduce structural inequities within the South. In highlighting these less visible equity concerns, the paper draws lessons for funders, academics and others concerned with establishing genuinely equitable research partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]