Photo: Domina Petric / Unsplash
This is a summary of a post first published on the website of the Finnish University Partnership for International Development.
New ethical guidelines for responsible academic partnerships with the Global South have been published by the Finnish University Partnership for International Development (UniPID), in collaboration with the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK).
“The ethical guidelines for responsible academic partnerships with the Global South are designed as a self-reflective journey to counterbalance the inherent global inequalities that permeate and that may be reproduced within academic collaborations.” They include principles, values, and resources for further reading to guide academic partnerships with the Global South, as well as a range of recommendations to improve current practices.
“Creating these guidelines has been considered crucial and necessary in a time when academic partnerships are increasingly popular and responsible engagement should be considered.” The guidelines address a range of topics related to inequalities between research partners, integrity, conflict of interests, and highlights two key shifts to consider for building more responsible academic partnerships: “Shifting from ‘knowledge transfer’ to ‘knowledge(s) in dialogue” and shifting from ‘do not harm’ to ‘ethics of care’”.
The guidelines are a product of ongoing discussions with the academic community in Finland and wider discussions and initiatives worldwide. They are based on a range of different national and international documents, including the Guidelines for reflection on international academic collaboration published by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education in 2020.
UniPID is a network of Finnish universities that supports interdisciplinary studies and research related to global sustainable development, similar to SweDev and one of our partners.
