Co-producing knowledge across disciplines and borders
Examining co-development of gene drive mosquitoes in the UK and Mali
Project goals
Knowledge co-production has become a popular buzzword in the challenge-led agendas of research funders in the Global North, yet it is not well defined when knowledge is co-produced across disciplines and across borders that stretch from the Global North to the Global South.
In this project, we investigated how researchers developing gene drive mosquitos for malaria eradication in Mali and the UK frame ‘co-development’ (between researchers, stakeholders and local communities).
FUNDER
British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Call (2017)
What we did
First, we conducted 19 interviews in the UK and 18 in Mali with key researchers, community members and stakeholders, and 2 ethnographies - one in Mali and one in the UK. We transcribed the interviews and produced 37 transcripts in both French and English.
Second, we analysed gene drive governance documents to understand the meaning of co-development and how it is conceptualised, particularly as a model for more effective and equitable relationships between the global South and global North.
What we learned
First, we learned that Malian and UK understandings of co-development are different: Crudely, Malians see co-development as ‘capacity building’ and UK partners see it as ‘technology transfer’. We also uncovered problematic concerns about power imbalances and slippage toward more traditional types of knowledge deficit approaches to engagement.
Second, we found the meaning of co-development had transformative potential to reimagine relationships in more equitable ways. Yet the concept also ‘slipped’ back to reductive framings of collaboration. This slippage was linked to the persistence of established knowledge hierarchies between expert and lay publics as well as new hierarchies between expert traditions.
Activities and outputs
Ledingham K, Opesen C, Hartley S and Neema S 2023 Situating the social sciences in responsible innovation in the Global South: the case of gene drive mosquitoes Journal of Responsible Innovation.
Hartley S, Ledingham K, Owen R, Leonelli S, Diarra S and Diop S 2021 Experimenting with co-development: a qualitative study of gene drive research for malaria control in Mali. Social Science and Medicine
Ledingham K and Hartley S 2020 Transformation and slippage in co-production ambitions for global technology development: The case of gene drive. Environmental Science and Policy, 116:78-85
Hartley S, Thizy D, Ledingham K, Coulibaly M, Diabaté A, Dicko D, Diop S, Kayondo J, Namukwaya A, Nourou B, and Paré Toé L 2019 Knowledge engagement in gene drive research for malaria control. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 13, e0007233.
de Graeff N, Jongsma KR, Johnston J, Hartley S, Bredenoord AL 2019 The ethics of genome editing in non-human animals: a systematic review of reasons reported in the academic literature. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 374, 1772
Thizy D, Emerson C, Gibbs J, Hartley S, Kapiriri L, Lavery J, Lunshof J, Ramsey J, Shapiro J, Singh J, Paré Toé L, Coche I and Robinson B 2019 Guidance on stakeholder engagement practices to inform the development of area-wide vector control methods. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 13, e0007286
Talk - ‘Co-development in Gene Drive’ Target Malaria Ethics Advisory Meeting, Ghana 2019. Invited
Talk - ‘Stakeholder engagement in gene drive mosquitos’ Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, Stakeholder Engagement Best Practices for Novel Vector Control Methods workshop, Washington DC, USA 2017. Invited
Talk - ‘The direction of travel: From public trust to co-production’ UKRI Knowledge Transfer Network Aviation September 2020
Talk - ‘Gene Drive Governance: Science in search of responsibility’ Roslin Institute, Roslin 2019. Invited
Talk - ‘Understanding the academic debate on genome editing in animals’ The Royal Society, London 2019. Invited
Talk - ‘Co-development and the responsible governance of gene drive research’, PEALS International Symposium: The implications and impacts of a responsibility agenda for synthetic biology, Newcastle 2018. Invited
Talk - ‘Engaging knowledge in gene drive research’ Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise, Cardiff University 2018. Invited
Project Team
