Academic promotion policies and equity in global health collaborations

Abstract

When global health researchers in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) collaborate with academics in high-income countries (HICs), these partnerships often result in disproportionate benefits for the HIC researchers who gain more opportunities for authorship, more prominent authorship positions, more opportunities to present at conferences, and more funding for administrative and student support for LMIC colleagues. This inequity gap persists despite existing guidelines for good collaborative practice and repeated calls to improve global health research partnerships.1 Models for equitable collaborations differ from country to country and team to team, depending on the experience and empowerment of the LMIC researchers and training institutes, research infrastructure, the length of collaborations, and the amount of funding available for research and training. However, the absence of an optimal model should not be an excuse for poor collaborative dynamics.