A Tale of Two Worlds: Exploring the Range and Depth of NGO–Academic Collaboration in International Development Across Europe

Studies on NGO–academic collaboration in international development focus on the joint conduct of research, often neglecting other cooperation activities. Here, we inductively explore and catalogue a fuller picture of NGO–academic relations, including practitioner perspectives towards academia. Based on 20 interviews with European development NGO staff and 51 survey responses, we devise a typology to capture the types and purposes of, as well as barriers to, NGO–academic collaboration and find that joint research conduct is rare. We reason that this is due to the systemic incompatibility of development practice and academic research—known across disciplines as the academic–practitioner divide—and conclude that more collaborative research is unlikely as long as the respective merit systems do not change.