Conversation Event Report: Applying a Decolonial Lens to Research Structures, Norms and Practices in Higher Education Institutions
On 18th September 2019 a conversation event was held at SOAS University of London to discuss research practices in higher education institutions from a decolonial point of view. A report has been written about the event, summarising what was discussed. You can read that report here.
The event emerged from concerns about the changing funding landscape in recent years, and the role of research offices in research development practices, especially in relation to emerging schemes that fund research related to UK Official Development Assistance (ODA). It aimed to bridge on-going efforts to diversify university curricula and decolonise knowledge production in British and other western universities with research development structures and norms as propagated by research offices and researchers, which had previously received little attention.
The conversation event, which was attended by almost a hundred people and watched online by an even larger number of viewers internationally, included three panels and 13 presentations by researchers, academics, practitioners, funders and research office directors from the health and social sciences in the UK and internationally. There is a link to the full report of the event here, which summarises the presentations and identifies the overarching issues and challenge areas that emerged on the day, and especially during the roundtable that was held after the panel presentations. The aim of the report is to provide funding bodies, research offices and researchers with some directions for thinking through these issues and identifying what actions they each may take to start to address such challenges more systematically from their different contexts.