Global north and south research partnerships are essential for building research capacity in the global south and for generating new knowledge to address complex socio-environmental problems. However, insights from various disciplines, particularly global health research, suggest that north-south research collaborations often reproduce unequal power relations and outcomes. To mitigate these, some international funding organizations have produced guidelines that promote ethical practice in collaborative research. Despite these measures, significant gaps exist in understanding how the experiences and perspectives of Global South scholars, particularly those in the field of environmental sciences, shapes discourses on unequal north-south research partnerships and the ethical guidelines developed to address disparities. To bridge this gap, we conducted explorative qualitative research focused on understanding the experiences of environmental science and sustainability researchers from Ghana in international collaborative research. Our findings revealed a general optimism among scientists regarding the benefits of international collaborative for making impactful contributions in the global south, expanding professional networks, opening opportunities to publish in high impact journals and developing new research skills. At the same time, our findings also indicate that pervasive forms of inequality centered around lack of recognition, poor clarity of roles, disrespect, unequal resource sharing, poor communication, and non-adherence to contractual agreements persist. We contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on research inequality by proposing a framework to guide the management, design, and implementation of north-south research partnerships. Our proposed framework serves as a starting point toward identifying potential unequal and unethical issues that often arise in north-south research partnerships.

全球南北研究伙伴关系对于建设全球南方的研究能力和产生新知识以解决复杂的社会环境问题至关重要。然而，来自不同学科，特别是全球健康研究的见解表明，南北研究合作经常会产生不平等的权力关系和结果。为了缓解这些问题，一些国际资助组织制定了促进合作研究中道德实践的指南。尽管采取了这些措施，但在理解全球南方学者（尤其是环境科学领域的学者）的经验和观点如何塑造有关不平等的南北研究伙伴关系以及为解决差异而制定的道德准则的论述方面仍存在重大差距。为了弥补这一差距，我们进行了探索性定性研究，重点是了解加纳环境科学和可持续发展研究人员在国际合作研究中的经验。我们的研究结果表明，科学家普遍对国际合作的好处持乐观态度，认为国际合作可以为南半球做出有影响力的贡献、扩大专业网络、提供在高影响力期刊上发表文章的机会以及发展新的研究技能。与此同时，我们的研究结果还表明，普遍存在的不平等现象仍然存在，包括缺乏认可、角色不明确、不尊重、资源共享不平等、沟通不畅和不遵守合同协议。我们提出了一个框架来指导南北研究伙伴关系的管理、设计和实施，为正在进行的关于研究不平等的学术辩论做出贡献。我们提出的框架是识别南北研究伙伴关系中经常出现的潜在不平等和不道德问题的起点。