Enabling connections between a multi-country urban research programme and the practices of an African urban research centre

Significant interest exists within urban scholarship regarding both the need to explore diverse urban situated knowledge while enabling effective forms of global comparison, and the place and utility of new urban science approaches. This article considers such interests in relation to the implementation of a multi-country urban research programme and its interface with the pre-existing interests and methodological practices of an African urban research centre. It suggests, when partners engage dialectically, large-scale research programmes may speak to and help offer new perspectives on local realities as much as local realities may help enrich the frameworks of international large-scale research programmes.