Understanding and redressing imbalances for South-North collaborations in energy and development research

Review
Overall, this is an important work, and I enjoyed reading it. While the manuscript makes an important contribution to understanding the Global North-Global South divide in research collaboration and funding, some improvements are needed to enhance its clarity, accuracy, and impact.
Major suggestions:
The manuscript’s scope should be clarified to align with the content more precisely. While the terms Global North and Global South are used extensively, the analysis primarily focuses on the United Kingdom, with a very brief example from the United States towards the end. To improve the accuracy and clarity of the research, consider either narrowing the scope by replacing Global North with a more specific focus on the United Kingdom or expanding the analysis of the United States. Additionally, clarify whether the workshop participant from France is professionally based in France or elsewhere, as there is no analysis of the French funding landscape or relevant institutions. These changes would better align the terminology with the actual content and provide a more precise representation of the study’s scope.
Similarly, the use of the term Global South should be more specific. While the term is frequently used throughout the paper, the only Southern countries mentioned are Brazil and Sudan, and even these references remain very brief. It is also unclear which specific Global South’ universities or research institutions are being referred to. To enhance clarity, consider providing more concrete examples and being more country-specific when discussing the Global South.
Minor suggestions:
Introduction: Consider shortening and making this section more succinct, as an 8-page introduction may be too lengthy.
1.1 The Global North-Global South divide: On page 5, note that China is located in the Northern Hemisphere, which may require clarification or adjustment in the context of the divide.
3.4 Research roles and power imbalances: On page 16, there are duplicated explanations of Global North researchers dominating the conceptualisation stage. Consider streamlining this page to avoid repetition.
3.6. Collaboration and capacity building: On page 21, consider moving the footnote definition of capacity building to the body text for better readability.
3.7 Recommendations: On page 22, correct the typo ‘there’s’.
Ensure consistent use of either British or American English throughout the paper.

Note:
This review refers to round 1 of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.

Review
This is a very interesting and well written study about an important topic of North-South divide in the energy research. I think it would be great to see the paper published, however, after some revisions. These are mostly about some unclarities in the text or some missing information. See my comments below, in relation to particular parts of the paper.

Abstract:
Introduce to issue of North-South divide in the abstract already. It seems that you “jump” into the need to “create more inclusive environments that allow researchers from the Global South to contribute solutions…”, but you do not even introduce what this is about (that there is N-S divide and what it means).

“this paper attempts to partially fill this gap” – it is not clear what gap, as you do not really write about any specific research gap in sentences before.

Introduction:
I think it would be good to have a bit clearer aim of the study. You write “This paper describes an effort to convene a conversation between researchers from the Global South and North, to understand the challenges and imbalances in their collaborative projects” – “describes and effort” sounds a bit weak as an aim of the paper; I would simply focus on what you were exploring, e.g. “The aim of this paper is to explore the challenges and imbalances in the…” or something like that. It would also be good if the actual aim is already specified in the abstract.

“for the challenges in their geographical context” – and also “social and political context”?

Section 1.1.
“In the context of these disparities, the global North-South divide” – “In the context of these disparities, the CONCEPT OF global North-South divide”

Section 1.2.
Provide full name of SDG acronym at first use

“There have also been growing calls for capacity building and mobilization…” – you could also refer to a study: Blicharska, M., Smithers, R., Kuchler, M., Agrawal, G.K., Gutiérrez, J.M., Hassanali, A., Huq S., Koller, S.H., Marjit, S., Mshinda, H.M., Masjuki, H., Solomons, N.W., Van Staden, J., Mikusinski, G. 2017. Steps to overcome the North-South divide in research relevant to climate-change policy and practice. Nature Climate Change, 7, 21-27.

Sentence starting with “Others observe that…” is very long and complicated. Would it be possible to e.g. divide it into two sentences, for easier read and understanding?

Methodology:
It is not clear how many surveys you sent out and how many responses you got. You write “The survey (n=50)”, but it is not clear if n is responses you got, or how many surveys you sent out. What was the response rate? Maybe it would be good to explain that you did not aim at a representative sample, but it was some kind of “scoping” of the relevant topic before the workshops (if this I what you meant with the survey)?

“The online survey method was selected because it allowed the project team to engage with a larger audience in a way that was convenient to them” – well, that a method was convenient is not a good justification of selecting a research method. However, I do not think you need to justify why you chose a survey, as this is established method of gathering data; I would remove this sentence, it is unnecessary.

The link to the website where you uploaded data does not work.

Very little is said about how the data from the survey or workshop were analysed. You only say that survey data were “were analysed inductively and thematically” and that workshop date were “analysed thematically in Microsoft Excel”. It would be good to add a bit detail about the analysis.

On the workshop mostly S researchers were present, and only 3 N researchers. I wonder if this was done on purpose? And if yes, what was the purpose. Also could the N-S distribution of participants have impacted the results?

Findings:
If 49 % of funding came from N countries and 37 % from S countries, what about remaining
Figure 1 is a bit unclear. Maybe add on the left side that these are respondents’ countries, and on right side that are countries that were studied? Alternatively, describe that in the figure legend. Figure should be understandable alone, without the need to read the article text.

Paragraph starting with “The first group discussion of the workshop was centred around…” belongs to Methods section, not the findings, as it explains what was done.

In general, you mix the use of tense when presenting your findings, e.g. “Survey respondents agreed…” (past tense) or “respondents largely share similar views” (present tense). Would be good to make it consistent.

Section 3.1:
In this section you are first quite specific about the barrier in question (how funding agencies operate), and provide lots of details about one example (UKRI grants) – but what about more general findings, that would be applicable to grants at large, not only UKRI grants? Also, at the end you write recommendation “for practical purposes, researchers should focus on bottlenecks that are within their control instead of trying to tackle structural barriers, such as funding agency guidelines” – to me it is very vague – what does it really mean “focus on bottlenecks”? what should they really do?

“such as including them co-authors in publications” – add “as” before “co-authors”.

Section 3.2:
Paragraph starting with “This is likely because…” – where does that come from? From open responses in the survey or discussions on the workshop? Or is it just your opinion/experience? Not clear.

Figure 2 – it is unclear what the % on the axis are - % of respondents? Needs to be added on the figure or figure legend.

Paragraph starting with “Another limitation affecting…” – there are some unclarities:
- “Some institutional barriers introduce perverse incentives” – what do you mean by saying that “barriers introduce incentives”?
- You cite some sources (like Care et al), but this is results section – so should be focused on results of your research, i.e. survey and workshops. Referring to other studies could maybe be left for Discussion/Conclusions when you discuss your findings.

Section 3.3
“Global South respondents also highlighted issues with payment delays. This could be due to the tendency for money to flow from Global North institutions that usually secure the funding for their Global South partners, adding extra administrative steps for the latter party“. It is not clear to me how the fact that money flows from N to S countries explains the delays.

Figure 6 – figure caption/legend is not very informative, so it is not possible to understand what the figure is about without reading in the article that it is about, i.e. perceived challenges linked to power imbalances… Should be made clearer.

Section 3.5
Paragraph starting “Participants emphasised that research agendas…” – participants off the workshop or the survey? Not clear, as previous paragraph is about the survey.

Section 3.6
Part “This viewpoint indicates that Global South researchers see research practices (…) researchers tend to underestimate their role” seems to belong to Discussion, not the Results/findings section.

Figure 8 caption “Opportunities presented by engaging…” – not sure what you mean by “presented by” here. Do you mean opportunities coming from the engagement in collaborative projects?

Sentence starting with “Responses to the question on impact and recognition corroborate the hypothesis put forward by…” – I think this belongs to Discussion/Conclusions section, not results/findings.

Section 3.7
In Recommendations you mention that there were 3 different themes revealed on the workshop: research agendas, research impact and capacity building. It would be good to then present them in the same order, focusing on each theme at the time. How this section is written now, is a bit “messy”, where you “jump” from one theme to another and back.

“Global North researchers should consider disseminating project outputs in languages other than English” – if so I guess there is also a need for funders to consider that, so costs of potential translations could be included in the budget from the beginning.

General comment: Most specific examples given in the paper come from UKRI funder, other funders/calls are barely mentioned. I wonder if workshop participants did not mention any other funders and issues linked to their grants, and if so, if these could also be included to balance the findings a bit better?

Note:
This review refers to round 1 of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.