Building the World’s First Global Shared Research Agenda on VAWG and Adapting It Regionally for Greater Impact

Together with the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI), and with support from Wellspring Philanthropic Fund and Sida, The Equality Institute co-developed the world’s first Global Shared Research Agenda (GSRA) on violence against women and girls (VAWG) – a landmark initiative to shape the global direction of VAWG research over the next five years. Grounded in evidence-informed dialogues and a diverse, participatory process, the GSRA challenges traditional hierarchies of knowledge and redefines who gets to shape research priorities. 

Building on this global framework, The Equality Institute led the development of a regional adaptation for the Asia and Pacific region, Filling in the Picture. This project elevated historically marginalised voices and identified priority areas for investment, research, and action in the region. Both the global and regional agendas are designed as practical tools to inform funding, guide research design and evaluation, support policy development, and drive advocacy across the field. 

The Challenge

For too long, research agendas on violence against women have been shaped by a narrow set of voices, often removed from the communities most affected. This has contributed to fragmented investments, misaligned priorities, and research that does not always meet the practical needs of policy, program, or community contexts. There was a critical need to develop an inclusive and transparent process for setting shared research priorities – one that values the lived experiences of practitioners, activists, and survivors, alongside academic and technical expertise. 

This challenge is even more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries and across the Asia and Pacific region, where historically marginalised groups are often excluded from research processes and where region-specific evidence gaps remain stark. 

The Solution

The Global Shared Research Agenda (GSRA) is the result of a two-year global process that brought together practitioners, activists, researchers, funders, and survivors in dialogue. A participatory methodology called CHNRI (Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative) was adapted for the process — ensuring all perspectives were considered equally, without privileging technical or academic voices. The GSRA identified research gaps and priority areas, and provides a framework for: 

• Supporting funders to make strategic, ethical investments in research. 
• Guiding researchers to align their work with field priorities. 
• Supporting practitioners to evaluate interventions and strengthen partnerships. 
• Enabling advocates to call for more and better funding in critical areas. 

“This is a ground-breaking piece of work. With the GSRA, we are challenging the old way of doing things, which for too long has seen research agendas set by people far removed from the communities for whom the research is meant to serve.” – Elizabeth Dartnall, Executive Director, SVRI 

 Filling in the Picture, the Asia and Pacific regional adaptation of the GSRA, was led by Equality Institute and co-created through a participatory process with an Advisory Group of researchers, practitioners, and activists across the region. A 21-question survey, translated into Bahasa, Mandarin, and Thai, was shared widely across networks and gathered responses from a diverse cross-section of people working on VAW. Respondents ranked global domains and research questions, and contributed open-ended insights on issues specific to the region. 

Filling in the Picture is both a reflection of regional priorities and a call to action. It supports stakeholders to: 

• Identify region-specific evidence gaps. 
• Strategically plan, fund, and monitor research. 
• Advocate for investment in high-impact areas. 
• Centre the knowledge and perspectives of historically marginalised groups.

The Impact

The GSRA and Filling in the Picture have set a new benchmark for equitable and inclusive research agenda-setting in the VAW field. Their influence spans policy, funding, research, and practice: 

• Global influence: The GSRA is a tool already being used by funders, researchers, and practitioners to shape priorities and influence resource flows toward ethical, evidence-based approaches. 
• Regional empowerment: Filling in the Picture provides an actionable, regionally specific framework to guide strategic investment in research across Asia and the Pacific – ensuring research responds to real-world needs. 
• Field-wide advocacy: Together, these agendas offer the VAW field a shared language and direction, making the case for more coordinated and better-funded research that is grounded in community realities. 

Neither agenda would have been possible without the generous contributions of activists, policy experts, practitioners, and researchers across the globe and the Asia-Pacific region. These tools are a testament to the power of shared knowledge and the importance of decolonising the research process, ensuring that those most affected by violence are shaping the solutions.