Working together: NGOs, academics, practitioners and researchers

An academic in an NGO. An NGO worker in academia. In this chapter, the author reflects on this dual role and how it can facilitate genuine partnership between the academic and NGO sectors and offer some thoughts about how those studying grassroots and international NGOs alike can best position themselves within these relationships. Nearly 20 years ago, Laura Roper wrote about the challenges of academic-practitioner research collaborations, and little has changed. She observed that such collaborations seem like a generally good idea all around, but that there are few successful examples of collaboration. The language of NGOs is very results-oriented. Practitioners want to solve a problem, test a theory of change or model within a programming context, and ensure that results are prompt and actionable. The language of academia is about dwelling on the asking of questions.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Researching Development NGOs: Global and Grassroots Perspectives on 28 April 2023, available online: https://www.routledge.com/9780367489458