Much previous work in the social sciences has involved researchers – often but not always from the Global North – collecting data from rural communities in the Global South on a wide range of topics from public health to education, agriculture and climate change. Such ‘helicopter’ research is not good practice as it often involves an asymmetry of power and knowledge that invariably disadvantages local communities. So how can research be made more equitable? This is the topic of an analysis undertaken by Jasper Knight from the Wits School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, who is also chair of the University’s Non-Medical Ethics Committee, in a new research study published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

The landscape of international higher education and science is changing fast amid uneven geopolitics of the transforming global order. Multipolar political economy and expansion of universities and research in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa provides a strong basis for national development and collaboration on common problems, paving the way to a shared global future, but this is jeopardized by intense United States pushback against openness and cooperation, affecting science, technology and cross-border mobility.