Helicopter research can be defined as the practice of foreign scientists conducting research in other countries without meaningfully or sufficiently involving the local scientific community. In this meeting led by Kelsey Mercurio, the conversation primarily focused on personal examples of people witnessing helicopter research and strategies we can employ to minimize it as well as promote genuine scientific collaboration along with community-based participatory research.

Discussion Leader: Kelsey Mercurio

Suggested reading: Adame, F. (2021). Meaningful collaborations can end ‘helicopter research.’ Nature, d41586-021-01795–1. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01795-1

Participatory Research. Community Science Initiative from the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC). https://communityscience.astc.org/approaches-to-community-science/participatory-research/

Minasny, B., Fiantis, D., Mulyanto, B., Sulaeman, Y., & Widyatmanti, W. (2020). Global soil science research collaboration in the 21st century: Time to end helicopter research. Geoderma, 373, 114299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2020.114299

Attended by 12 people.

• Helicopter Research consists of:
  • Foreign Researchers fail to meaningfully/sufficiently involve local scientists.
  • A well-funded university doesn’t support the smaller institutions with which they collaborate.
  • Failure to recognize members of local/indigenous community
  • Discussion Examples:
    • Giving faculty positions to foreigners (USA) in Panama.
    • Change in language when conducting research in a different culture.
• How to prevent helicopter research yourself?
  • Providing monetary aid? – prohibited in some communities
  • Working with local communities – not just for dealing with regulatory affairs and funding
  • Need to move past inclusivity tokenism and into true partnership and collaboration.
• How to promote genuine scientific collaboration?
  • Signing collaborative agreement – Costa Rica and Brazil examples.
  • Some funding requires matching funding from a local country.
  • Engaging indigenous communities in research by addressing their needs – examples from Canada.
• Community Based Participatory Research
  • Better Research for local communities – for THEIR needs.
  • Environmental Issues, Health, Social Sciences, Agriculture, Education, Ecology & Biodiversity
  • Examples:
    • Farmer Participatory Crop Breeding in Tanzania
    • Sorghum research against parasitic Striga plant based on what farmers want in Africa.
  • Levels of participation in research process – choice about the degree of community participation. Can do one or all of the below:
    • Inform – providing information to the community
    • Consult – Input is obtained from community
    • Involve – working directly with community
    • Collaborate – Partnership in research programs
    • Empower – Community leads research decision making
  • Ethical considerations for Community-based Participatory Research
    • Equity and Inclusion – if everyone isn’t included then it leads to power imbalance among participants
    • Consensus rather than informed consent
    • Ownership of data and research achievements
    • Sustainability and maintenance of relationships
    • Risk for participants
    • Balance expectations – don’t promise to fix everything
    • Involving local knowledge experts
  • ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program) at National Human Genomics Research Institute: Program at NIH that deals with ethical implications of research in Genomics.
  • University level solution: Potentially having an officer at the University/Institute to be in-charge of managing ethics of research engaging local communities.
  • Researcher-level solution: Include your community engagement work in your presentations/talks + ask the audience on what could be done for the community next.