Undergraduate curricula are often shaped by the perspectives, history and knowledge systems of the country in which an institution is based and, in most cases, they provide students limited opportunities for international collaboration.
Here we present a transnational collaborative framework that brings together students and academics from the Global North and the Global South to address shared challenges across different countries. The model, which is applicable to any discipline, offers lessons for anyone seeking to embed global collaboration and research capacity-building into undergraduate education.
These are some of the key principles that have shaped our approach.
Find a partner first, then define the project together
Transnational collaborations often begin much more simply than people imagine. Whether you are in the Global North and seeking a partner in the Global South, or vice versa, the first step is finding an academic who shares an interest in education, research and global engagement. Existing collaborators can be a useful starting point but new partnerships can emerge simply from identifying colleagues from learned societies or conference programmes.
- Making undergraduate access to research experience transparent and inclusive
- Teach students to think like researchers
- Equitable international research collaboration is possible – find out how
Start by sending a speculative email expressing your wish to establish international collaborations among your students and theirs. The initial conversation should focus on respective interests and expertise. Avoid proposing a specific project or research topic. Co-creating the research question from the outset helps establish an equitable partnership, ensures that the project reflects the priorities and expertise of both institutions and allows you to jointly identify a challenge that can be explored through both Global North and Global South perspectives.
Recruit for commitment and diversity, not symmetry
When assembling student teams, it is not necessary to achieve perfect symmetry between institutions. Student numbers do not need to be identical, nor do participants need to come from the same discipline or year of study. In fact, diversity is often one of the greatest strengths of transnational collaborative research projects.
The project can also operate within different educational structures. Students from one institution might complete assessed dissertations with fixed submission deadlines, whereas students from the other institution might participate entirely voluntarily and without any formal assessment requirement. For the latter, sustained engagement can be fostered by recruiting students through a competitive application process that offers meaningful opportunities for international research experience and co-authorship of publications arising from the project. This enables the selection of highly motivated students who are genuinely committed to the project despite receiving no academic credit. The result is a multidisciplinary and intercultural team united by shared interest rather than assessment requirements.
Establish clear ways of working from the outset to maintain momentum
To ensure consistency and accountability throughout the academic year, it helps to identify a recurring slot that works across time zones and academic commitments to discuss progress, share challenges and agree on next steps.
The project format also matters. Systematic reviews are especially suitable for undergraduate projects because they allow students to produce meaningful scholarly outputs within a relatively short time frame while contributing to an important evidence base. Providing structured training at the project’s start enables all students to quickly develop the necessary skills and become increasingly confident researchers. This structure also moves beyond simply comparing findings across countries. Instead, it creates opportunities for ongoing dialogue throughout the research process.
Responsibilities can be clearly distributed across the team. Students can take ownership of specific tasks, such as developing search strategies, screening studies, extracting data or synthesising findings, making collaboration more manageable and efficient.
Developing employability skills
Students must negotiate different viewpoints, challenge assumptions and learn how grand challenges can look very different depending on social, educational, economic and cultural context. These conversations often develop skills that traditional dissertations struggle to cultivate. Students learn intercultural communication, collaborative problem-solving and how to work productively across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. These competencies are increasingly important for graduates entering healthcare, research and policy environments that operate on a global scale.
An additional advantage is that the process also creates opportunities for students to engage with librarians at both institutions to develop and refine database searches that allow them to build important information literacy skills while establishing professional relationships beyond their immediate supervisory teams. This reinforces the collaborative nature of the project and demonstrates that high-quality research is often supported by expertise from across the wider university community.
Design projects with sustainability in mind
The greatest value of transnational student research projects lies in their potential to create lasting impact. Systematic reviews could be the first stage of a longer programme of work. The evidence generated might help to shape culturally appropriate research tools, future funding applications and interventions involving community members, healthcare professionals and policymakers in both countries.
As global challenges become more complex every year, it is crucial to create opportunities for undergraduate students to work across borders, learn from different perspectives and recognise that meaningful solutions rarely emerge from a single institution or country alone.
Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez is vice-dean of equality, diversity and inclusion in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at UCL. Peter Snow is lecturer (teaching) in healthcare technology at UCL. Olutayo Ifedayo Ajayi is head of physiology at the University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda.
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