New online gallery is an educational resource exploring equity in research partnerships

How can we shift the power balance in global research?

This was the question driving the Building African Equitable Partnerships [BEAP] project, a nine-month project funded by the Arts and Humanitites Research Council (AHRC) and led by The Open University’s Professor Parvati Raghuram. There has been a lot of debate in recent years about how research collaborations need to address power hierarchies and asymmetries in research processes, practices and relationships. BEAP engaged a diverse range of stakeholders across Africa, centring global South voices into the conversations in a way that aimed to provide practical transformative change, led through community and local engagement.

From this work a new educational resource, hosted through OpenLearn, will launch on 1 November 2025.

Informed by the findings of BEAP, the PEERS (Partnering for Equitable Research) gallery – is an immersive online experience, where learners will move through a virtual gallery interacting with exhibits, which include stories from over 80 contributors, from across more than 20 research projects. BEAP identified that the institutional ecosystems within which researchers operate has a significant impact on how research teams can embody equity in their research practice. 

The gallery shines a spotlight on this too often overlooked dimension of partnering. Each of the eight rooms are themed around different aspects of institutional protocols and processes, such as ethics, finance and due diligence. The exhibits are testimonials, highlighting how institutional requirements can create or reinforce inequity in partnerships and how the teams tried to redress the imbalances. The course provides learners with insight and reflections grounded in the real-world experiences of those involved in research.

Learn more about the projects contributing to the gallery through the Decolonising Education for Peace in Africa [DEPA] project website.