Collaborative Futures

What four international partnerships taught us about Global Justice Education

Between February 2025 and the summer of 2026, four University College Cork teams worked with partners and collaborators in Palestine, Malawi, India, Peru and The Gambia. The projects formed part of a wider PRAXIS research initiative examining what international partnerships can contribute to Global Justice Education—and what makes those partnerships meaningful, reciprocal and equitable.

The four projects were intentionally small and exploratory. They were not identical projects being tested against a single model. Each began from different relationships, disciplines, contexts and stages of development.

Together, however, they produced substantial learning. They introduced knowledge and perspectives that would not otherwise have been available within UCC, changed aspects of teaching and professional practice, created educational resources and opened possibilities for longer-term collaboration.

At the heart of the research was one central question:

What can international partnerships contribute to Global Justice Education, and what conditions enable those partnerships to become equitable, reciprocal and sustainable?

Four different partnership strands

The Palestine–Ireland partnership worked with colleagues at Birzeit University and a wider network of Palestinian and Irish educators. Its original plan to examine the oppressive uses of artificial intelligence changed when Palestinian partners identified educational continuity, digital learning and support for educators working under crisis conditions as more urgent priorities. Its work included an AI in Higher Education webinar and the development of the OpenEduSumoud concept for sharing educational resources in crisis-affected settings.

The Malawi–India–Ireland partnership explored democracy as a global condition, an institutional practice and an embodied capacity. It connected work at UCC and the University of Malawi with an arts-based workshop involving Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch, a Dalit cultural collective in Mumbai. The partnership examined what theatre and performance can contribute to democratic participation, care, voice and agency.

The Peru–Ireland partnership brought together UCC, the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima and the Federación Regional de Mujeres Indígenas de Ayacucho. Law students from Lima spent three days learning with Indigenous women and young people in Ayacucho, while students and staff in Cork participated in experiential learning connected with land, waterways and traditional eel-skin tanning. The team produced a bilingual educational toolkit concerned with ancestral and Indigenous knowledges, ecofeminist pedagogy and intercultural learning.

The Gambia–Ireland partnership drew upon longstanding professional relationships between UCC colleagues and Gambian planners. It used spatial planning to explore urbanisation, land, food systems, migration and competing understandings of sustainable development. Its interactive StoryMap updates questions first raised in a development education resource produced in 1987. This was the most exploratory of the four strands, and direct co-development with Gambian colleagues remains an important next stage.

How the research was conducted

The research drew on thirteen individual interviews, four team interviews, partnership meetings and presentations, a closing focus group, team reports and the educational resources developed through the projects.

Rather than asking only whether each partnership completed its proposed activities, we examined what changed through the work. Did partners influence the direction of the project? Did participants encounter knowledge that altered their thinking or practice? How were decisions about resources, authorship and outputs made? What supported the work, and what made it more difficult?

What we learned

1. International partnership can deepen Global Justice Education

The partnerships brought different histories, knowledge systems and professional practices into dialogue. They connected Global Justice Education with technology, education under crisis, theatre, democracy, law, planning, migration, Indigenous knowledge, ecofeminism and relationships with land.

They also brought Global Justice Education into parts of university life that do not always engage directly with it. Academic, professional and administrative staff contributed alongside students, educators, artists, planners and community participants.

The value of the work was therefore not limited to its formal outputs. It lay in the questions participants encountered, the assumptions they reconsidered and the new possibilities they began to see.

2. Partners must be able to change the question

One of the clearest findings was that consultation is not enough. A partner may be included in meetings and named in an output while still having little influence over the decisions that matter.

The partnerships were strongest where partners could shape—or fundamentally change—the purpose of the work. The Palestine partnership provides the clearest example: the original plan changed because Palestinian colleagues identified more immediate educational priorities.

This is an important principle for Global Justice Education. Partners should not simply participate in projects already designed elsewhere. They should be able to influence the questions, methods, resources, outputs and definition of success.

3. Mutual learning must be visible

International activity does not automatically produce mutual learning. The research therefore looked for evidence that somebody changed their understanding or practice because of knowledge brought by a partner.

There were clear examples. UCC participants in the Palestine partnership reconsidered their role and assumptions about solidarity. In the Peru partnership, discussions with Peruvian colleagues changed the language one researcher uses when writing and teaching about ancestral and Indigenous knowledge. A Malawian partner adapted a performative methodology to local circumstances. Partners at Birzeit began developing ideas for reciprocal webinars through which Palestinian educators could share their knowledge with Irish audiences.

The evidence records more learning on the UCC side, partly because UCC staff were more strongly represented in the research material. This is itself an important lesson: future research should ensure that partners can contribute to analysing and interpreting the evidence, including through their own languages.

4. Relationships matter—but goodwill is not enough

The partnerships that held together most effectively generally built upon relationships that already existed. Trust, professional history and personal commitment enabled teams to continue when circumstances changed.

Existing relationships can also be fragile when too much depends on one person. A strong partnership therefore needs shared leadership, continuity contacts and clear responsibilities on each side. Goodwill is valuable, but it cannot substitute for structures that protect the relationship when somebody becomes unavailable or moves to another role.

5. Equity depends on practical conditions

Questions of time, language, administration, technology and finance were not peripheral to the partnerships. They shaped who could participate and on what terms.

The Peru partnership showed why language and cultural mediation must be planned from the beginning rather than added when difficulties arise. Across the projects, institutional payment and procurement procedures created delays and sometimes made it difficult to support planned partner activities.

The lesson is not that expenditure must be identical in every country. Rather, teams need to identify in advance what participation will require, which contributions or activities need payment, what documentation is possible and how much lead-in time institutional processes will require.

From the research, we identified six practical conditions for more equitable partnership:

1. Partners can influence or change the question.
2. Leadership and responsibility are shared.
3. The partnership has a realistic, bounded task.
4. Resources reflect the actual costs of participation.
5. Accountability is flexible without allowing the work to drift.
6. Ownership, authorship and the future use of outputs are agreed from the outset.

6. Small projects can create meaningful possibilities

These projects were initial partnership strands rather than finished models. Their value should not be judged only by whether every original activity happened exactly as planned.

They produced resources that can now be used in teaching and professional learning. They generated new relationships across countries and disciplines. They enabled students and staff to encounter perspectives that would otherwise have remained distant from their education. They also made institutional barriers visible and provided practical learning for future work.

Several possibilities are continuing beyond the original funding period, including reciprocal educational activity with Birzeit University, further development of the OpenEduSumoud pilot, continued work with the Peruvian partners and direct engagement with Gambian colleagues in the next stage of the StoryMap.

Partnership as a practice of Global Justice Education

Overall, the research demonstrates that international partnership can make a distinctive contribution to Global Justice Education. It can bring different knowledge systems into conversation, challenge assumptions, connect local and global experience and support the development of practical educational resources.

Partnership is not automatically equitable, however. Equity must be built through shared decision-making, adequate time, realistic resources, attention to language, transparent authorship and agreement about what happens after a funded project ends.

The difficulties encountered do not negate the value of the work. They help us understand what more responsible partnership requires. The strongest learning occurred when partners were able to shape the direction and public story of the work—and when participants were willing to change their own thinking and practice in response.

Explore the partnership resources

• The Right to Learn: Palestine and Ireland
• Performing Global Justice: Malawi, India and Ireland
• Fostering Ecofeminist Co-Learnings Across Cultures: Peru and Ireland
• Whose Sustainable Development? The Gambia and Ireland

The complete research report, Collaborative Futures: International Partnerships in Global Justice Education, is currently being finalised. It will present the four case studies, cross-partnership findings and practical recommendations for educators, institutions and funders.

Acknowledgement

The cross-partnership research was led by Dr Gertrude Cotter, Principal Investigator, with Dr Billy Goodwin, Research Assistant and lead report author, and was co-authored with members of the four PRAXIS partnership teams.

We acknowledge all the students, educators, artists, planners, professional staff and community participants who contributed their time, knowledge and critical reflection.

The partnership programme and research were supported by Irish Aid through the PRAXIS Project, School of Education, University College Cork. Responsibility for the content rests with the authors and contributors.