TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards effective and sustainable global academic partnerships through a maturity model informed by the capability approach
AU - Fekadu, Abebaw
AU - Assefa, Esubalew
AU - Tesfaye, Abraham
AU - Hanlon, Charlotte
AU - Adefris, Belete
AU - Manyazewal, Tsegahun
AU - Newport, Melanie J.
AU - Davey, Gail
N1 - Funding Information: None. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).
M1 - 131
PY - 2021/11/20
Y1 - 2021/11/20
N2 - BackgroundShortage of skilled workforce is a global concern but represents a critical bottleneck to Africa’s development. While global academic partnerships have the potential to help tackle this development bottleneck, they are criticised for inadequate attention to equity, impact, and sustainability. We propose a new values-driven partnership model for sustainable and equitable global partnerships that achieve impact.MethodThe model was based on the authors’ experiences of participation in over 30 partnerships and used insights from the Capability Approach.ResultsWe developed an Academic Partnership Maturity Model, with five levels of maturity, extending from pre-contemplative to mature partnerships. The level of maturity increases depending on the level of freedom, equity, diversity, and agency afforded to the partners. The approach offers a framework for establishing a forward-looking partnership anchored in mutual learning, empowerment, and autonomy.ConclusionThis is a pragmatic model limited by the biases of experiential knowledge. Further development of the concept, including metrics and an evaluation tool kit are needed to assist partners and funders.
AB - BackgroundShortage of skilled workforce is a global concern but represents a critical bottleneck to Africa’s development. While global academic partnerships have the potential to help tackle this development bottleneck, they are criticised for inadequate attention to equity, impact, and sustainability. We propose a new values-driven partnership model for sustainable and equitable global partnerships that achieve impact.MethodThe model was based on the authors’ experiences of participation in over 30 partnerships and used insights from the Capability Approach.ResultsWe developed an Academic Partnership Maturity Model, with five levels of maturity, extending from pre-contemplative to mature partnerships. The level of maturity increases depending on the level of freedom, equity, diversity, and agency afforded to the partners. The approach offers a framework for establishing a forward-looking partnership anchored in mutual learning, empowerment, and autonomy.ConclusionThis is a pragmatic model limited by the biases of experiential knowledge. Further development of the concept, including metrics and an evaluation tool kit are needed to assist partners and funders.
KW - Academic partnership maturity model
KW - Capability
KW - Global partnerships
KW - Sustainable development goals
U2 - 10.1186/s12992-021-00785-2
DO - 10.1186/s12992-021-00785-2
M3 - Article
SN - 1744-8603
VL - 17
JO - Globalization and Health
JF - Globalization and Health
IS - 1
ER -