IDOS adopts the Trust Code – A Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships

IDOS, as the first German institution to do so, has adopted The Trust Code – A Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships. Adopted among others also by the European Commission, the University of Capetown, and the National Science Centre in Poland, the Code outlines principles for equitable research partnerships structured along the four core values of fairness, respect, care, and honesty. Acknowledging that research partnerships are often set within structures of significant imbalances of power, it provides guidance on how to ensure research is conducted on an equal footing sensitive to local contexts and with a fair sharing of burdens and benefits.

The Code exemplifies IDOS’s institute-wide approach to research partnerships. As spelled out in the institute’s strategy Sustainable Futures, IDOS deliberately breaks with post-colonial research traditions that take “Western” epistemologies and guiding principles (“Leitbilder”) for granted, apply a dichotomy of “developed vs. developing” and continue to reproduce biased knowledge systems in which low- and middle-income countries and societal actors are essentially reduced to (research) objects. Rather, at IDOS, we work in diverse trust-based research networks with partners around the globe, keen to learn from our partners’ perspectives and agency. We thus work towards generating multi-perspective research across different world regions (“decolonising” and “de-westernising”) by collaborating with a wide range of partners and deliberately investing in the further institutionalisation of transregional partnership networks and platforms.