Knowledge in Times of Crisis: Transforming Research to Policy Approaches

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented challenges for researchers and policy analysts and accentuated the need for access to civil society and advocacy movements within politically closed spaces. The impact of locally led Covid-19 response research in the global South has subsequently raised questions about traditional research methods that often prioritise academic rigour over practical relevance and result in research disconnected from the realities of people’s lives. This issue of the IDS Bulletin presents learning gathered from rapidly mobilised Southern-led research.