The North–South ‘research for development’ collaborations—often funded by institutions in the Global North—remain a common model for producing research focused on the Global South. While these partnerships can be effective in achieving scientific goals, they also risk reinforcing exploitative or neocolonial dynamics.
There is a long-standing pattern of funding bodies in the Global North supporting research partnerships between Northern and Southern institutions to address development challenges specific to the Southern partner—such as reducing the burden of infectious diseases or improving staple crop yields. In contrast, the reverse scenario—South–North research partnerships designed to tackle development issues specific to the Northern partner—is far less common.
This asymmetry highlights significant disparities in funding, research capacity, and opportunities across the global research landscape. As a result, many national research systems in the Global South remain at least partially dependent on financial support and collaboration from Northern institutions. The “national research system,” refers to the interconnected network of individuals, institutions, and organizations within a country that are dedicated to producing and applying scientific knowledge—typically focused on national priorities and challenges—and encompassing governance structures and funding mechanisms.
Strengthening national research systems in the South should be a central priority in the research for development agenda. Doing so would promote greater autonomy for Southern institutions and help ensure that future North–South collaborations are more equitable and mutually beneficial.
Prioritising research systems in development
The partial reliance of many national research systems in the Global South on funding and partnerships from the North is a development challenge in its own right. Yet only a small share of ‘research for development’ funding from the Global North—and the North–South collaborations it enables—is directed toward strengthening these national systems.
This neglect creates a self-perpetuating cycle: limited research capacity in the South drives the need for Northern partnerships, but when these partnerships focus narrowly on delivering research in specific thematic areas without addressing systemic weaknesses, the underlying dependency remains. Breaking this cycle requires a deliberate shift toward strengthening research systems in the Global South as a core objective of ‘research for development’ efforts.
This is not to suggest that North–South ‘research for development’ collaborations should focus exclusively on strengthening national research systems. Rather, the issue is one of balance. International research partnerships continue to play a vital role in addressing a wide range of development challenges in the Global South. However, greater and more direct investment in strengthening national research systems would give Southern countries greater autonomy—enabling them to define their own research priorities and to choose, on their own terms, whether and with whom to partner in the Global North.
Recognising this dilemma, research for development funders in the Global North are increasingly expecting the North–South collaborations they support to deliver both scientific outputs and research capacity strengthening outcomes. For instance, a partnership funded to conduct scientific research in support of a national disease control programme would now also be expected to show how its activities contribute to strengthening the research capacity of the Southern partner, alongside its scientific contributions.
Rethinking the research for development model
While there are many examples of North–South ‘research for development’ collaborations successfully delivering both scientific and capacity-strengthening outcomes, this model remains problematic for several reasons. First, in most partnerships, capacity strengthening is treated as a secondary objective, often resulting in limited scope and ambition. This is partly because such collaborations are typically led by experts in the scientific domain rather than in institutional capacity development.
Second, emerging evidence suggests that these partnerships are generally more effective at building the capacity of individual researchers in the Global South than at strengthening the institutions and broader research systems in which they operate. Moreover, the benefits of individual capacity strengthening can be short-lived if those individuals do not remain in roles where they can apply and share their newly acquired skills.
Finally—and perhaps most importantly—there is a well-documented history of exploitative practices within North–South research collaborations. These partnerships are frequently critiqued as vehicles for neocolonialism, promoting Northern scientific paradigms across the Global South at the expense of local knowledge systems. While such concerns have rightly drawn attention to issues of equity within these collaborations, genuine equity is most effectively achieved through sustained investment in systems strengthening. This enables Southern researchers and institutions to engage with Northern partners on a more equal footing.
Adding to these challenges—and further highlighting how rarely national research systems strengthening has been a central focus of research for development efforts—is the lack of high-quality evidence to guide effective strengthening strategies in the Global South. This gap underscores the need for Northern research funders to not only reconsider how research for development funding is allocated, but also to invest in scientific research aimed specifically at understanding how to build stronger national research systems.
To paraphrase a well-known saying on fishing and feeding people: Fund a North–South research collaboration, and you support Southern-focused research for the duration of a single project; invest in strengthening Southern research systems, and you enable Southern-led research for the long term.
This article is part of a series organized with the UK Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR) and the impact of funding approaches on research. Exceptionally, we are accepting contributions from researchers but also from research funders for this series.
