Lessons Learned from a North-South Science Partnership for Sustainable Development

Abstract

SDG goal 17 seeks to strengthen global partnerships, especially between Global North and South. However, in research and development, experiences indicate a mismatch in expectations with perceived power, funding and workload imbal- ances, a situation derogated as ‘parachute science’ or ‘helicopter research’. The research programme SPACES seeks to enhance North-South collaborations. As an inter- and transdisciplinary research programme focusing on the interactions between land, sea, atmosphere, biosphere and society, it aims to be a forum for fruitful partnerships. In this chapter, we carve out lessons learned from the nine projects involved in the programme’s second phase. Based on a survey amongst 66 SPACES II scientists, we explored their motivations for collaboration, their involvement in decision-making, the assigned resources and workloads as well as conflicts between Northern and Southern teams. Furthermore, we conducted