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Breaking Borders: How Barriers to Global Mobility Hinder International Partnerships in Academic Medicine

Wondimagegn, D; Ragab, L; Yifter, H; Wassim, M; Rashid, MA; Whitehead, CR; Gill, D; (2021) Breaking Borders: How Barriers to Global Mobility Hinder International Partnerships in Academic Medicine. Academic Medicine 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004257. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

This article describes the authors' personal experiences of collaborating across international borders in academic research. International collaboration in academic medicine is one of the most important ways by which research and innovation develop globally. However, the intersections among colonialism, academic medicine, and global health research have created a neocolonial narrative that perpetuates inequalities in global health partnerships. The authors critically examine the visa process as an example of a racist practice to show how the challenges of blocked mobility increase inequality and thwart research endeavors. Visas are used to limit mobility across certain borders, and this limitation hinders international collaborations in academic medicine. The authors discuss the concept of social closure and how limits to global mobility for scholars from low- and middle-income countries perpetuate a cycle of dependence on scholars who have virtually barrier-free global mobility-these scholars being mainly from high-income countries. Given the current sociopolitical milieu of increasing border controls and fears of illegal immigration, the authors' experiences expose what is at stake for academic medicine when the political sphere, focused on tightening border security, and the medical realm, striving to build international research collaborations, intersect. Creating more equitable global partnerships in research requires a shift from the current paradigm that dominates most international partnerships and causes injury to African scholars.

Type: Article
Title: Breaking Borders: How Barriers to Global Mobility Hinder International Partnerships in Academic Medicine
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004257
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000004257
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > UCL Medical School
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10132386
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