I’ve just spent two days talking about environmental futures with scholars from the Pacific and the UK, brought together by @BritishAcademy_ @HumanitiesAU @royalsocietynz. Talking about #academicinequalities we heard reflections from a colleague from Samoa. My notes below... 1/

Much of this will sound like bread&butter but we heard about due diligence being overlooked, making it difficult to achieve trust or do the work ethically. I have certainly fallen short at times in seeking collaborations in my own research context. So no piety intended here. 2/

First some context: @GCRF funding in the UK has increased the amount of approaches #pacificisland institutions and individuals are receiving. Often these are rushed, trying to meet impossibly short deadlines. 3/

Researchers seeking grants can’t control these deadlines. Neither, sometimes, can funding bodies; it depends on who releases the money to them (usually government) and when those officials require spending to begin and end. 4/

One would hope that short application periods for collaborative grants would favour opportunism from people with meaningful, pre-existing relationships. Undoubtedly, they can also encourage tokenism from those seeking a ‘partner’ to simply tack on. So what advice did we get? 5/

(1) Do NOT arrive with a pre-made proposal and no willingness to have your collaborators contribute to or modify it. That is, collaborate from the very beginning, not once the project has already been imagined and defined. (Like I said, bread&butter.) 6/

(2) Remember that this applies to multiple levels of collaboration: researchers, policy bodies, cultural organisations, community voices, and so on. Co-production requires participation. 7/

(3) Find ways to democratise access to knowledge related to the research. Is there a local journal you can publish in? Can your collaborators access your institution’s subscriptions during the grant period? 8/

(4) Pay for your overseas colleagues’ time, admin costs, and other resources and support. This feels like it should already be the norm now that many schemes allow and indeed expect it, but practices are still lagging. More on this below 9/

(5) If your uni has in-house policies to reduce spending on partner costs, get them changed. We heard about global North unis monopolising funds even when donors emphasise that costs should be allocated equitably—an attitude that does not delight the award panels, by the way. 10/

(6) Still on funding: allow a big chunk of resources for translation and interpreting. This takes time and is expensive. Translate to disseminate as well as to gather. 11/

(6) Be aware of local sensitivities. The data you seek may not be appropriate to ask for, or not in the way you think. Anonymity may be more difficult in small communities. Researchers who don’t fly out afterwards have to deal with these issues on a different level from you. 12/

(7) Make the decisions together, but don’t leave it up to your collaborators to educate you about everything. If the context is new to you, work out what others have gotten wrong or done well and learn from that. (Why aren’t there more ‘prepare to partner’ forums?) 13/

(8) Consider how non-academic collaborators are represented (or not) in institutional processes and in your own co-production efforts. Whose intellectual property rights are at stake? Can you pay people without making them fill out a trillion inappropriate forms? (contd...) 14/

(8 contd) Don’t accept lax ethics from other organisations or your own. Institutional pressures on this issue must be resisted. (These points grouped as 8 were raised by an Indigenous scholar based on experiences in Australia.) 15/

In many ways it was a frustrating session where problems were familiar and widespread, but solutions felt beyond the grasp of individuals. But care and activism matter: taking personal responsibility for what you can and making collective campaigns where they are needed. 16/

To reiterate if you missed the start: these are notes drawn from other scholars' discussion of #academicinequalities. I learned a lot, and it reminded me that the commitment to working ethically is not made with a single choice but a constant effort. /end