Promoting equity in research partnerships is one of the main challenges of decolonising research. It is also the main purpose of the African Charter, which, in line with pan-African intellectual engagement, is committed to supporting and strengthening the continent’s contribution to scientific knowledge production.
The African Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations was launched in 2023 on the initiative of Africa’s leading higher education organisations and networks, with the support of the Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC) at the University of Bristol.
For these various partners, it was as much a matter of social justice as it was a necessity to end the perpetuation of unjust hierarchies in scientific activity, which stemmed from colonial histories and contributed to the maintenance of broader political and economic inequalities on a global scale.
The idea behind this Charter is
- to ensure that African researchers, institutions and knowledge take their rightful place in global scientific endeavour, in the fields of formal, natural and social sciences, arts and humanities.
- To promote richer, more balanced and therefore more powerful research, which the international community needs in order to respond to the multiple crises facing the world and to defend the dignity and fulfilment of human beings as it should.
This richer science must give an active place to a plurality of knowledge about how the world works and should work. It must offer alternatives to the monochrome logic of Western scientific thought that has dominated research until now and contributed to the difficulties the world faces today.
In this interview, Marie-Annick Gournet (Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor – University of Bristol) reminds us of the Charter’s foundations and ambition, and makes some proposals for rebalancing power relations in the world of academic research.
Why an African Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations?
The African Charter emerged from a simple observation: for far too long, research as it is conceived and practised within academic and scientific institutions has been largely shaped by knowledge frameworks from the Global North. This mode of knowledge production, rooted in colonial histories, has over time generated profound asymmetries, both in the recognition and in the legitimacy accorded to different forms of knowledge.
The Charter’s ambition is precisely to transform this approach. It seeks to rebalance the representation of knowledge, to ensure equitable participation of Global South actors in knowledge production, and to promote genuine co-construction of knowledge at a global scale. For knowledge produced in the Global South to be truly valued, it is essential that Southern researchers and institutions are fully involved from the very inception of research projects.
Concretely, what are the priority areas for gradually rebalancing academic partnerships?
A first fundamental priority concerns equitable participation in research projects. All too often, projects are designed in the Global North and then implemented in the Global South, following a logic that can be described as extractivist. Researchers from the South are thus relegated to the role of implementers rather than recognised as genuine co-creators. It is essential that research projects be jointly conceived, with equivalent roles in terms of design, scientific leadership and co-authorship of research outputs.
A second major issue relates to funding. Today, the majority of research funding originates in the Global North, which leads to decision-making processes largely shaped by Northern priorities—particularly in African contexts marked by fragile economies. More balanced funding arrangements would enable fairer project governance and help reduce structural asymmetries in the research landscape.
Finally, there is the issue of publications and the valorisation of research outputs. Research conducted in Africa is often framed as strictly contextual, whereas research produced in the Global North is viewed as universal. It is crucial to revalue contextual knowledge and to recognise its full scientific significance, in order to correct this implicit hierarchy of knowledge.
At what point might the Charter begin to influence funders?
The influence of the Charter will grow as the number of signatories increases and as their collective commitment becomes more visible. However, a real turning point will be reached when funders themselves recognise the importance of these principles and begin to explicitly integrate them into their future funding criteria and conditions.
A global knowledge system integrating knowledges from all continents is an ideal. What obstacles must be overcome to achieve it?
This is a long-term endeavour. It requires a profound re-examination of existing practices within many institutions: evaluation systems, publication criteria, administrative structures and ways of conceiving research itself. This transformation will take time, and institutions are likely to fully commit only once they clearly perceive the benefits for themselves.
It also requires accepting a fundamental truth: integrating plural knowledges means embracing difference. This involves recognising that the methods privileged in Western countries are not the only valid ones, and that other ways of doing research exist. Embracing such diversity also entails relinquishing certain privileges within the research field—a slow and sometimes difficult process.
