The past decades in the UK have witnessed renewed interest by policymakers, research funders and research institutions in the engagement of non-academic individuals, groups and organizations with research processes and products. There has been a broad consensus that better engagement leads to better impact, as well as significant learning around understanding engagement and improving practice. However, this sits in tension to a parallel trend in British higher education policy that reduces the field to a narrow definition of quantitatively measured impacts attributed to individual researchers, projects and institutions. In response, this article argues for the mobilization of an emerging field of 'research engagement studies' that brings together an extensive and diverse existing literature around understandings and experiences of engagement, and has the potential to contribute both strategically and conceptually to the broader impact debate. However, to inform this, some stocktaking is needed to trace the different traditions back to their conceptual roots and chart out a common set of themes, approaches and framings across the literature. In response, this article maps the literature by developing a genealogy of understandings of research engagement within five UK-based domains of policy and practice: higher education; science and technology; public policy (health, social care and education); international development; and community development. After identifying patterns and trends within and across these clusters, the article concludes by proposing a framework for comparing understandings of engagement, and uses this framework to highlight trends, gaps and ways forward for the emerging field.

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This article responds to the drive for research partnerships between academics and practitioners, arguing that while potential benefits are clear, these are frequently not actualized resulting in partnerships that are ineffectual or worse, exacerbate damaging or inequitable assumptions and practices. In order to understand/improve partnerships, a systematic analysis of the interrelationship between what counts as evidence and dynamics of participation is proposed. Drawing on data from a seminar series and iterative analysis of seven case studies of partnerships between Higher Education Institutions and International Non‐Governmental Organisations, the article concludes by suggesting substantial shifts in the theory and practice of partnerships. © 2019 The Authors Journal of International Development Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

While there is a burgeoning literature on the benefits of research collaboration for development, it tends to promote the idea of the "partnership" as a bounded site in which interventions to improve collaborative practice can be made. This article draws on complexity theory and systems thinking to argue that such an assumption is problematic, divorcing collaboration from wider systems of research and practice. Instead, a systemic framework for understanding and evaluating collaboration is proposed. This framework is used to reflect on a set of principles for fair and equitable research collaboration that emerged from a programme of strategic research and capacity strengthening conducted by the Rethinking Research Collaborative (RRC) for the United Kingdom (UK)'s primary research funder: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The article concludes that a systemic conceptualisation of collaboration is more responsive than a "partnership" approach, both to the principles of fairness and equity and also to uncertain futures. RÉSUMÉBien qu'il existe une littérature émergente sur les bienfaits de la collaboration pour le développement de la recherche, celle-ci tend à promouvoir la notion du partenariat comme un périmètre délimité dans lequel il est possible d'intervenir pour améliorer les pratiques de collaboration. Cet article ancre son analyse dans la théorie de la complexité et la pensée systémique, et démontre par leur biais qu'une telle hypothèse est problématique, car elle dissocie la collaboration du reste des systèmes de recherche et de pratique. Nous privilégions ici une approche systémique afin de comprendre et d'analyser les collaborations. Cette approche nous permet d'étudier un ensemble de principes visant à faciliter une collaboration juste et équitable dans la recherche qui ont émergé d'un programme de recherche stratégique et de renforcement des capacités, dirigé par la Rethinking Research Collaborative (RRC) pour le principal bailleur de fonds de la recherche au Royaume Uni : UK ARTICLE HISTORY

With renewed investment of the UK's official development assistance (ODA) commitment into research, there is a need to rethink traditional understandings of 'research impact'. In this article, we argue that impact in ODA-funded research should go beyond translating research findings into practice and policy or implementing research in partnership with research mediators/users. Instead, development agendas of those living and working in the global South, including academics and practitioners, and those working in international non-governmental organisations should influence the research agendas, approaches, and schemes that allocate funding. These stakeholders have profound knowledge of what real-world impact looks like, the types of impact needed, local and national realities, and how complex processes of development impact unfold. Drawing on a programme of research conducted by the Rethinking Research Collaborative, we examine eight principles for 'fair and equitable research partnerships' using insights from our individual experiences to offer new thinking on ODA-funded research impact.