Build equitable partnerships
We are committed to establishing equitable partnerships between researchers in low and middle income countries (LMICs) and in the UK.
We encourage and enable LMIC researchers to design, lead and publish research on an equal footing with researchers in high income countries. It is a condition of most of our funding programmes that applications are made jointly by researchers in LMICs and in the UK. We also accord equal value to the skills and experience of LMIC and UK researchers and actively promote shared learning.
Helping you build equitable research partnerships
Our Equitable Partnership Guide provides advice, guidance and links to other resources.
Research partnerships between LMICs and the UK can create a variety of opportunities and benefits for all parties, but also have their own challenges. Building and maintaining equitable partnerships can help ensure that research outcomes are mutually beneficial and more likely to achieve the desired development impact.
We expect equity to be strongly reflected in research leadership, decision-making, capacity strengthening, governance, appropriate distribution of funds, ethics processes, data ownership, publication and dissemination of findings.
“The funding from NIHR Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) has allowed me to bring together researchers from different academic disciplines with clinicians, patients and community members in countries in four continents. We are in the early stages of the ECLIPSE programme but we already share best practice across radically different healthcare systems and cultural, political and economic contexts.”
Professor Lisa Dikomitis, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology of Health at Keele University and ECLIPSE Co-Principal Investigator
Support available
We offer specific support to help applicants build equitable partnerships.
The Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme offers Proposal and Partnership Development Awards (PPDAs) of up to £10,000 to support researchers to develop LMIC-UK partnerships during preparation of a stage 2 application. Find out more about PPDAs.
Similarly, the Global Health Policy and Systems Research (Global HPSR) programme offers Development Awards of up to £100,000 to support researchers in building partnerships and undertake a needs assessment of local priorities for research, to support an application for future research funding. Find out more about Development Awards.