Background to the Toolkit
Partnerships of all types have become increasingly popular in higher education, especially since the United Nations embraced the notion in its sustainable development agenda. Universities are increasingly expected to conduct research in collaboration with international partners, as well as utilising other types of partnerships. These alliances can help optimise knowledge creation and impact, strengthen research capacity, and improve the quality and relevance of research.
Numerous research funders, particularly in the United Kingdom, have responded to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by creating initiatives to support international research partnerships. Equity is key to these initiatives. If a research relationship is to have maximum impact, it should function on a fair and level playing field.
About the Toolkit
This ACU toolkit is a collection of practical resources to support analysis and action for addressing equity in research partnerships. It is informed by substantial research conducted with a range of equitable research partnership stakeholders and experts.
The toolkit looks to stimulate critical thinking and dialogue about what equity means, and what it might ‘look like’ in a research partnership, as well as suggesting practical actions that can be implemented to strengthen this. A growing body of guidelines and principles have called for increased equity in research partnerships but have to date provided little advice on how to translate these principles into actions. This toolkit looks to address this. Each tool comes with specific guidance on why, when and how to use it. Every tool is designed to help establish or enhance equity within a research partnership.
Who is the Toolkit for?
The toolkit is designed to be used by all researchers working in partnership. It has a special focus on international (Global North and South) partnerships. However, many of the tools are relevant for other types of partnership in which there are potential inequities between partners (such as multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, public-private, South-South). The tools may also be adapted to examine equity in terms of characteristics, for example gender or race.
The tools featured here utilise social science methods of generating and organising information. However, you do not need to be a social scientist to use them. Each tool comes with detailed instructions, and many of them include templates for collecting and organising data. The tools are designed to be easily used by researchers with no previous experience of collecting information from people or of partnership equity.
How to use the toolkit
The toolkit is intended for flexible use by researchers working in different types, and at different stages, of partnerships. Partners can decide which tools to use and when. Different tools will be more and less appropriate for different partnerships. It is unlikely that any partnership will use all the tools. Many research partnerships will only have the resources to implement one or two.
In new partnerships, it might be useful to implement several of the planning tools, for example in a workshop setting. In existing partnerships, it may be better to select the tools that are most applicable to a specific issue, at a specific point in time.
The toolkit is not intended to create extra work. The tools are designed to facilitate systematic, participatory approaches to working on equity. The tools are also designed to create outputs that can be used to support claims of equity in things like funding applications and progress reports.
Many of the tools are designed to be customised by the users. For example, researchers using the tools might be asked to determine the assessment criteria to be used in different tools, or for ideas of questions to be posed in a discussion. Examples and suggestions are always provided, to assist researchers in thinking through how to adapt the tools to the specifics of their partnership.
It is important to use the tools with the awareness that some partners will feel more able to contribute to discussions than others. The intent to foster mutual learning and understanding, and a commitment to enhancing equity, will also go a long way. Creating spaces in which people feel safe and confident to share their ideas and concerns is a prerequisite for using the toolkit effectively. It is also an important step in working towards equity in a research partnership.
Rapid and intensive tool use options
Many of the tools are designed to be used in group settings such as workshops, to promote reflective thinking about equity in different stages of research partnerships, and how inequities might be minimised. However, group meetings are not always feasible, particularly in the early stages of partnership formation, where there may be no funding to cover the costs of examining equity. Many of the tools can be used rapidly by individual researchers or a subset of research partners. Suggestions for rapid and intensive applications of tools are provided.
Face-to-face and virtual options
Most of the tools can be used either in face-to-face or virtual settings. Suggestions are provided for implementing tools using both formats.
How many tools to use
How many tools to use will depend on the characteristics of the research partnership. All of the tools can be used independently of the others. Using a single tool to think about equity in the partnership can be valuable. Using every tool in the toolkit is unlikely to be feasible or valuable.
When to use the tools
The tools are intended to facilitate thinking about equity in four stages of a research partnership.
- Planning
- Implementing
- Disseminating
- Sustaining
Many of the tools can be used at multiple stages of the partnership process. However, the value of using the tools in the planning stage of research cannot be over emphasised. Planning is a key stage for addressing equity because it is normally the stage when important decisions are made about things like roles, responsibilities, study design and data ownership.
All toolkit content is © Association of Commonwealth Universities 2023. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.