The Rethinking Research Collaborative (RRC) was an international network of networks including research organisations, civil society organisations, social movements, international NGOs and research brokers, training providers and funders who were committed to working together to explore the politics of participation in knowledge for international development and to encourage more inclusive and responsive collaboration in order to produce more relevant research.

Founded through an ESRC-funded seminar series in 2014, a network-building and agenda-setting grant from the Open University in 2017 and a grant from UKRI for strategic research to inform fairer and more equitable research collaboration in the context of their Oversees Development Assistance (ODA) funded research, the RRC evolved from a UK-focussed network (with core partners including The Open University, Christian Aid, INTRAC, Bond and UKCDR) to an international movement (with partners including the UNESCO Chair programme in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, Global Development Network, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices, MS TCDC and the pan-African social movement Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity.)

In 2019 the RRC was awarded first prize for ‘Best External Research Collaboration’ at the Open University’s 50th Birthday Research Awards. We produced a series of influential Principles for Fair and Equitable Research Collaborations, publications on ‘Evidence and the Politics of Participation‘, ‘Rethinking Research Impact‘ and ‘Moving Beyond Partnership with Systems Thinking and Complexity Theory‘ a series of high-impact learning resources and reports for funders such as UKRI and network organisations such as Bond.

Building on our collective commitment to decolonising international development as well as our research which increasingly called into question the value of ‘research partnerships’ over and above more sustained investment in research systems in the global South, in 2021 we took the decision to disband the RRC as an expert network and instead to support the ongoing work of our southern-based partners. Please refer to the work of the UNESCO Chair programme in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, Global Development Network, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), Praxis Institute for Participatory Practices, MS TCDC, Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity and Southern Voice for ongoing commentary on research collaboration for international development.

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Learning for Consortia: Lessons from the UK AID Connect Funding Mechanism

In 2022 The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) finally agreed to publish the review of their UK AID Connect funding mechanism. This expert review was conducted by the academic board of the Learning from Consortia programme led by BOND, which was funded through UK Aid Connect to support the 14 multi-stakeholder consortia and generate learning around the programme’s five cross-cutting themes: consortia working; innovation; community engagement; gender equality; and Value for Money. The review was published as an Appendix of the UK Aid Connect 2021 Annual Report.

The review was neither an evaluation of the UK Aid Connect programme, nor of the performance of the funded consortia. The learning and recommendations presented focused on the funding model, rather than on consortia practice, with the intention of supporting funders, policy makers and other stakeholders to design future funding initiatives for complex, collaborative programmes. More in-depth examples of good practice in consortia working are documented in the accompanying practitioners’ guide and other outputs from the Learning from Consortia programme.

The review is available to access here.

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