What makes working together work? A scoping review of the guidance on North–South research partnerships

At their best, research partnerships provide a mechanism to optimize each partner’s strengths, make scientific discoveries and achieve development goals. Each partner stands to gain from the relationship and perceives it to be fair. However, partnerships between institutions in the global North and the global South have been beleaguered by structural inequalities and power imbalances, and Northern stakeholders have been criticized for perpetuating paternalistic or neo-colonial behaviours. As part of efforts to redress imbalances and achieve equity and mutual benefit, various principles, guidelines, frameworks and models for partnership have been developed. This scoping review maps the literature and summarizes key features of the guidelines for North–South research partnerships. The review was conducted between October 2020 and January 2021. Three academic journal databases and Google were searched, and additional resources were identified through a hand search of reference lists and expert recommendation. Twenty-two guidelines were identified published between 1994 and 2021 and originating predominantly in the fields of international development and global health. The themes addressed within the guidelines were aggregated using NVivo qualitative analysis software to code the content of each guideline. Topics featuring most prominently in the guidelines were: partner roles, responsibilities and ways of working; capacity strengthening; motivation and goals; resource contributions; agenda setting and study design; governance structures and institutional agreements; dissemination; respect for affected populations; data handling and ownership; funding and long-term commitments. The current study reinforces many of the themes from two recent scoping reviews specific to the field of global health, but gaps remain, which need to be addressed: Southern stakeholders continue to be under-represented in guideline development, and there is limited evidence of how guidelines are used in practice. Further exploration is needed of Southern stakeholder priorities and whether and how guidelines are operationalized.