2021-Year of Equitable Research Partnerships is being featured here as a newly launched campaign by the Research Fairness Initiative partner organization, with the ultimate aim to help reverse persistant evidence that within scientific collaboration between high and low-middle income countries there are issues of power imbalance and inequitable sharing of benefits and resources

by  Daniele Dionisio

PEAH – Policies for Equitable Access to Health

Newly Launched

2021- Year of Equitable Research Partnerships

 

PEAH is proud to stand in support of 2021-Year of Equitable Research Partnerships as a new project promoted and carried out by the Research Fairness Initiative – RFI partner organization.  As such, PEAH aligns with what highlighted by Kirsty Kaiser, Implementation Manager, RFI South Africa:

“International collaboration in science and education is essential to international development and, as we have seen since the start of the COVD-19 pandemic, the key to finding solutions to globally relevant issues. Unfortunately, there is still evidence that within scientific collaboration between high and low-middle income countries there are issues of power imbalance and inequitable sharing of benefits and resources, despite the many calls for more equitable practices to become the norm. Most notably, a key example of one of these issues is related to vaccine access and the impact of COVID-19 on under-developed health systems within LMICs.

We have decided to promote 2021 as the Year of Equitable Research Partnerships – in line with our  Research Fairness Initiative – which has to date been adopted by 11 research stakeholders across the globe and is gaining traction as a key tool for improving the equitability of research partnerships for funders, organisations and institutions who are taking part in scientific collaboration. In addition to our own work, we are aware of a number of other organisations who are working in this important area and have created a webpage where we list some of the key tools and guidelines we know of that are being used in the work towards more fair research partnerships” .

 

While taking momentum triggered by this project into most account, PEAH calls on its readership and partners to back the campaign and publish the information on their websites and in newsletters - given the relevance of this issue in the broader context of COVID-19, and research in general. We feel that the scope and aims of the project could benefit from increased visibility and are doing our best to disseminate as widely as possible.