Challenges and facilitators for meaningful and impactful stakeholder engagement in global health research

Stakeholder engagement is increasingly required in global health research, yet its implementation often remains underexamined, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Drawing on literature and experience from a multinational respiratory research programme, this viewpoint highlights how structural constraints, ethical ambiguity, power dynamics, and socio-cultural factors can undermine meaningful engagement. Without reflexive, adequately resourced, and institutionally supported approaches, stakeholder engagement risks becoming symbolic rather than transformative. Funders and institutions must therefore invest in flexible, long-term, and context-sensitive engagement models that genuinely reflect and respond to the communities global health research seeks to serve.