Speaker
Matt is a Professor of Global Development and Dean of Research Culture at Northumbria University. His research interests focus on the relationships between civil society, citizenship and development in the global South, with a particular focus on volunteering in humanitarian and development settings, and on young people as development actors. He is Principal Investigator of Refugee Youth Volunteering Uganda (www.ryvu.org), an ESRC/GCRF funded project exploring volunteering by young displaced people in Uganda and its impacts on their skills and employability and experiences of inequality. He is also PI of a BA/GCRF project exploring youth agency for Sustainable Development in Palestine, and a Co-Investigator and Work Package Lead for UKRI/GCRF Living Deltas (www.livingdeltas.org), an interdisciplinary research hub working to support more sustainable futures for deltas in South and South East Asia. Matt is also Research Director of the Swedish Red Cross Led Volunteers in Conflicts and Emergencies Initiative (www.rcrcvice.org), a research, innovation and learning project to support the safer and more effective engagement of volunteers in crises.
Matt previously worked for a development NGO and he continues to work in partnership with a range of national and global development organisations. This work includes co-designing and delivering research projects, acting as a critical friend to organisations and work to help build research and data collection and analysis capacity within development organisations and the groups they engage with. At Northumbria, Matt is co-director of the Northumbria Centre for International Development.
Abstract
This session explores the often unseen and unspoken dynamics that shape engaged research, focusing on the invisible economies of collaboration across academia, activism, policy, and practice. Drawing on extensive experience working across these sectors, Professor Matt Baillie Smith invites participants to reflect on the value flows, power relations, and labour that underpin research partnerships.
The session begins by confronting a challenging but essential question: What breaks collaboration? Through collective reflection and discussion, we examine the conditions under which collaborations falter — including mismatched expectations, lack of role clarity, and extractive dynamics. From there, the session turns toward constructive practices, asking: What does it take to build collaborations that work from the outset? Participants will co-develop shared vocabularies and frameworks rooted in trust, care, accountability, and transparency.
This hands-on, critically reflective session aims to support researchers in cultivating more equitable, resilient, and intentional collaborations in their engaged research practice.
Event Details
Date: July 15th, 2025
Time: 14:00-15:00 (GMT+1)
Location: University of Lisbon