Creating opportunities for African researchers to flourish in global research partnerships will bridge the gap in research capacity and infrastructure that prevents Africa from addressing the underlying issues contributing to its appalling levels of poverty, unemployment, and other underdevelopment indicators. Given the critical role that scientific knowledge produced by research activities can play in the development of world economies, global research partnerships may provide a means of enhancing scientific capacities across the continent. Using narrative inquiry as a methodology and Collaborative Autoethnography (CA) as a method, the paper draws on the personal collaborative research experiences of two academics at different South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Underpinned by collaboration theory, the study recognises that the work of Sub-Saharan African researchers is often undervalued and overlooked in research debates, complicating interprofessional collaborations. We asked the question: How may global research partnerships contribute to forging equitable and socially just research partnerships in Sub-Saharan African countries? The findings demonstrate that researcher capacity and inclusion have the greatest influence on creating equitable and socially just research partnerships in Sub-Saharan African countries. The study recommends a transformative collaborative research framework advocating for the advancement of research equity by promoting a multiplicity of research outlooks, methods and research content and nurturing critical intellectual exchange through sharing research ideas and perspectives in transformative interactions and creating an enabling mode for transformative collaboration in which HEIs assist researchers to show leadership in their field of expertise.

Authors:
June Palmer, Central University of Technology, South Africa
Darrell De Klerk, Northwest University, South Africa

About the Presenter(s)
Professor June Palmer is a University Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer at Central University of Technology, Free State in South Africa

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

Bookmark