WAITRO Event Series: Capacity Development on Diversity in International Research Cooperation

The WAITRO Event Series: Capacity Development on Diversity in International Research Cooperation was organized by the WAITRO Office Germany with the aim of ensuring long-time partnerships that are sustainable and successful. Three online events were developed to enable the participants to face persistent challenges regarding inequalities in research, and cross-border collaborations.

On June 2nd, it took place the first event of the series: “Roundtable on Managing Diversity in International Research”. This event was focused on discussing different perspectives regarding international cooperation, its challenges and ways to overcome them. Jakob Feldtfos Christensen, founder and director of Diversiunity, moderated the event and introduced the guest speakers:

Joy Owango, Executive Director of Training Centre in Communication (TCC), Kenya, mentioned the difficulties of building strategic partnerships between the Global North and Global South. According to her, one of the main disadvantages of this kind of collaboration regards funding and the topics of research. For instance, African Researchers need to follow European Agendas in order to get funding.

Prof. Imran Rahman, Advisor at Center for Sustainable Development, Vice-Chancellor of University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh. He talked about the benefits of internationalization such as technical advantages, testing new ideas, experiencing new contexts, exchanging ideas, etc. Yet, Bangladesh hasn’t developed a strategy to increase internationalization in universities or research centers.

Dr. Laura Heath-Stout, Anthropologist at University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA. In regards to internationalization and collaboration between Global North and South, she mentioned how it is easier for countries such US to get funding for research, whereas researchers from Global South struggle to apply for it. On the other hand, internationalization is limited to specific countries. For instance, in her research, she noticed that international researchers in the US focused on their native countries, which does not help promote further internationalization.

Dr. Susanne Bührer, Coordinator of Business Unit Societal Change and Innovation, Project Manager at Fraunhofer ISI, Germany. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) within the Framework of the European Commission was her focus.

Dr. Eugenia J. Olguín, Editor-in-Chief of Latin American Journal of Algal and Environmental Biotechnology at INECOL, Mexico. She mentioned the challenges of internationalization regarding publication. For example, the fact that scholars need to pay to publish in high-ranked journals, which is necessary for them to be part of international research environments.