More than an academic exercise: Structuring international partnerships to build research and professional capacity for conservation impact

Partnerships between researchers and conservation practitioners are essential for gathering the information needed to diagnose conservation problems and to determine what actions are most likely to be effective to achieve desired conservation outcomes. In developing countries where conservation capacity is limited, it is critical that partnerships between international and local research and practitioner communities also strengthen local capacity to lead in the conservation of their own regions. To achieve this means avoiding the pitfalls of “parachute science,” a phenomenon where foreign researchers engage in a project in a developing country without appropriately integrating or acknowledging local researchers and without investing in the professional capacity of a country's individuals or institutions. Using the authors' experience, we describe four approaches used to structure international research partnerships with conservation and academic institutions in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, where government policies oblige foreign researchers to partner with national institutions and students. We describe the impact of these partnerships on strengthening national capacity for conservation science and practice over time.