Decolonising Research

Abstract

Decolonizing research is a crucial endeavour. Historically, colonial and imperialistic ideologies have pervaded, leading to an emphasis on Western perspectives and the neglect of indigenous and other marginalized communities' needs and experiences. To effectively address health disparities and promote justice and equality, acknowledging and addressing these power imbalances are imperative(1). Decolonising research in Africa requires shifting power from externally driven agendas towards locally grounded knowledge systems and priorities. The search evaluated 23,873 African and 190,644 United states interventional trials registered on clinicaltrials.gov through April 2026. Most studies in Africa are foreign sponsored with foreign written protocols as in the Ugandan context, institutions sponsor less than 30% of the clinical trials(2). Results show a 45 times gap ratio between Africa trials and the United States with a yielded Gini coefficient of 0.732(95% CI 340.80-3401.54). This indicated a smaller number of trials among a small number of nations. These findings showed that structural governance deficits perpetuate research dependency and undermine African sovereignty over clinical evidence.