Our director Nermin Oruč participated in the co-design workshop „COVID – 19 and Research System Observatory”, organized on 11 & 12 March 2021. The workshop was organized online by GDN and INASP, who joined hands to call for coordinated global work on research and knowledge systems and the impact of the pandemic, with specific attention to social science research and knowledge systems and the evolving situation in developing countries. In three different sessions, participants were asked to discuss upon following issues: Who’s paying attention to the impact of COVID on research systems; How to define a research agenda on Southern research systems in times of COVID; and How should a global observatory work, in practice?
The network believes that there is an opportunity — and a clear need — to establish a global observatory on Southern social science research and knowledge systems in ways that multiply the visibility and connection between existing efforts to generate evidence on these questions. Comprising a network of established Southern researchers, the observatory would be capable of generating short term evidence and longer-term research agendas on the evolution of Southern research systems and mapping existing work across the global South. It would take the perspective of research systems as a whole — across disciplines and sub-systems — but would ensure that social sciences are given sufficient attention, given their relative neglect in many existing studies.