Theme 5: Futures: reimagining health research partnerships

Statement of focus 

The Futures session will focus on how equity can be enacted as a lived practice, which requires commitment to move beyond rhetoric so that knowledge, authority and resources are co-created and co-owned.  

Session summary 

How can we reimagine global health research partnerships to make them more equitable in the future? This is crucial given that current models of producing, creating and implementing knowledge has implications for how partnerships are shaped for the future. This session explores how we can transform both the epistemological and operational dimensions of these collaborations to build more just and inclusive futures. 

The next three talks will address these questions from different but inter-connected perspectives. Nagia Tagoe from Ghana will speak about decoloniality as a pathway to ensure equitable research partnerships. She will argue that decolonisation requires concerted, systematic efforts to address inherent power asymmetries. Following this, Prakriti Shrestha from USA will discuss findings from her doctoral research on how international funding mechanisms often disadvantage researchers and research eco-systems in the Global South thereby creating inequitable partnerships. She will propose ways through which health partnerships can evolve if funders were to embrace equity not only as a tokenistic gesture but rather as a structural commitment. Mona Nasser (UK) will then share her experience of conducting interactive, immerse workshops under the program, MetaFuturism Lab that allow participants to reimagine multiple possibilities, not limited by imagination.