Partnership arrangements for development oriented research are becoming increasingly important to contribute in achieving sustainable development and addressing social concerns, livelihood insecurity and environmental degradation. The SDC, the SNF and the Swiss Academy of Science are supporting for decades the ‘research partnership’ between the North and South to carry out long term, trans-disciplinary collaborative research on the issues of global concerns. NCCR North-South, launched since 2001, is one of such important partnerships Swiss initiatives supported by SDC-SNSF and implemented in 9 different parts of the world (9 Joint Areas of Case Studies – JACS). The regional coordinators of the 8 JACS are in a particular position that can highly contribute to a comparative study trying to explore the partnership dynamics in such different political and socio-cultural contexts. The study (project) aims at contributing to the shaping of more efficient North- South partnerships good practices for sustainable development. The three main general objectives are: a) to examine the effects of NCCR North-South research partnerships on developing/improving institutional capacities of the partners in the South; b) to analyse the role of NCCR partnerships in international development cooperation (mainly SDC), in the particular countries where NCCR North-South is active; and c) to identify and document the determinants of the "good practices" in designing or shaping future research partnership. This study will employ mainly qualitative (but also quantitative where possible) research methods such as interviews, (in-depth, key informants and telephone), focused group discussion, mail questionnaire, and content analysis (report, publications, and course contents). At the institutional level, the main research partners (universities, research centres, international agencies, ) will be the units of analysis. Main partners in (up to) 3 countries per JACS will be included for the study. At the individual level, persons with different levels of research involvement will be covered as much as possible in the whole JACS countries: senior researchers, post docs, PhD students, and heads of institutions. The implementation of this project in 18 months (from January 2008 to June 2009) will involve several bodies at different levels: the RC forum, the Core Group (CG), the Senior Researchers and Project coordinators, and the local young researchers in RCOs. An effective system of good monitoring and follow-up will be built in the study project. The main expected output is one edited book. The estimated budget for the study is 179,498 Swiss Francs.
