Science, technology and innovation (STI) are essential for building a fairer and more sustainable world. For countries in the Global South, they can provide opportunities to accelerate development, improve public services, address climate change and reduce poverty. Yet access to scientific knowledge, technological resources and research opportunities remains deeply unequal. The challenge is therefore not only to make technology available, but to ensure that communities in the Global South can actively participate in producing knowledge and shaping the solutions that affect their lives.
Important steps are already being taken. The United Nations established the International Day of Science, Technology and Innovation for the South to recognize the importance of STI for sustainable development and to promote greater cooperation among countries. South-South and triangular cooperation are creating new opportunities to exchange knowledge, technologies and expertise, while initiatives supporting research capacity and digital innovation are helping to reduce existing inequalities.
University partnerships can play a particularly important role in this process. An inspiring example is the collaboration between the University of Gothenburg’s Centre for Person-Centred Care and researchers and healthcare institutions in South Africa. Their joint work has developed PicPecc, a digital tool that helps children communicate their symptoms and participate more actively in person-centred healthcare. The tool incorporates several South African languages and has been developed and tested collaboratively by researchers in Sweden and South Africa. The partnership has also expanded into training, joint research, new university and hospital collaborations, and capacity building.
These initiatives show that international scientific cooperation can be much more than technology transfer. When researchers, universities, professionals and local communities work together, solutions can be adapted to local contexts and communities can gain greater agency over knowledge and innovation.
However, much remains to be done. We need sustained investment in research and education, stronger local scientific institutions, equitable access to digital technologies and long-term partnerships based on reciprocity rather than dependency.
We must continue to strengthen these collaborations, ensuring that the Global South is not simply a recipient of scientific knowledge, but an active producer of it. Empowering local communities to participate, innovate and make decisions is essential if science and technology are to contribute to genuinely inclusive and sustainable development.
Serra Húnter Fellow of Sociology at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Former DAAD-Gastprofessorin at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg