Equitable Partnership in International Collaboration (EqPIC) – a Call to Action

Introduction:

This Call to Action on Equitable Partnership in International Collaboration (EqPIC) was developed at the First Conference on Equitable Partnerships hosted by the British Academy on Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12 February 2025 in London.

The conference brought together participants of five global workshops on equitable partnerships in international research collaborations that were hosted by the British Academy in London, UK; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; Pretoria, South Africa and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between July and November 2024.

At each of the workshops, regional stakeholders in international research collaborations including researchers, other university actors, funders, and sector networks worked together to identify barriers and opportunities for fostering equitable research collaborations while understanding the unique contexts and challenges specific to each region.

These deliberations build upon, complement and extend the many earlier and ongoing efforts to achieve greater equity in research collaborations. The voices, views and perspectives from these workshops were amplified further by participants in the London conference, leading to this collective Call to Action, underpinned by a shared set of principles.

Context:

The commitment towards equitable partnerships is set in the context of:

• Longstanding discussions and dialogue on approaches to equitable practice in international research and innovation collaboration,
• A plethora of policies and approaches aiming to encourage and support equitable partnerships,
• A growing emphasis on collaborative research with an increasingly diverse range of agencies and institutions, and academic and non-academic partners, from an increasingly wide range of countries,
• An expansion of project-based, competitive funding for such research,
• The availability of funding for research and for global development creating tensions around agendas and expectations for research excellence, societal benefits and development outcomes,
• A desire to move beyond aspirations for more equitable partnerships towards concrete actions.

Preamble:

Excellent research and innovation require collaboration. Research achieves better results when partners collaborate equitably.

The following principles are intended to underpin the Call to Action. They set out the foundations for fostering such excellence in a collaborative and fair manner. They should guide international research collaborations towards achieving mutually beneficial and respectful partnerships.

Translating these principles into practice involves recognising the roles that all stakeholders play both in their local sphere of influence, and globally within wider partnerships.

Principles for equitability in partnerships:

1. Equity should feature at all stages of the research and innovation lifecycle across the knowledge and evidence ecosystem. This requires co-creation from agenda setting, partnership development, project design, budgeting and financial management and awareness of potential incompatibility of policy and governance frameworks to jointly owning and agreeing on use of any research data and knowledge, publications and other outputs.
2. Respect, trust and open communication must be fundamental principles of any collaboration, taking into consideration the diversity of languages.
3. Collaborative research should be driven by reciprocity, by seeking mutual benefits for all stakeholders and by recognising the expertise and value of the wide range of stakeholders contributing to research.
4. Diversity fosters innovation, and so cultural differences should be recognised as an enabler rather than seen as an obstacle.
5. Enabling mobility of stakeholders and investment in partnership development is crucial and requires funding, based on recognition that greater awareness of each partner’s environment and objectives is conducive to more effective and impactful research.
6. Equitable partnerships should be underpinned by forms of funding that enable institutions to become more resilient, supporting researchers and research managers in research collaborations that lead to the strengthening and flourishing of their respective research and innovation environments.
7. Stakeholders (funders, researchers, research managers, institutions etc) should ensure that equitable partnership principles are demonstrably embedded throughout the research lifecycle, in evidenced ways that support accountability and mutual learning.
8. Joint research endeavours should serve all stakeholders’ needs, while recognising that their objectives might be different.
9. Recognise the continuous evolution of concepts and practices of research excellence, to embrace scientific rigor and validity, and societal relevance, purpose, value and application.

The Call to Action:

More than ever, there is a need for actions to follow these principles. The workshops and conference have clearly identified pathways that all stakeholder groups can and should be taking. Equitability is the responsibility of everybody be it at the individual, institutional or systems-level. We call on all stakeholders to play an active part in supporting, strengthening, and achieving, equitable partnerships that contribute to purposeful, excellent and impactful research.