On March 14-15th, the US National Academies hosted a discussion on Africa-US science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) university partnerships, as part of an effort to design a new partnership mechanism. The program opened with representatives from African institutions talking about their experience with previous research partnerships. As the UK redesigns its mechanisms for funding research in the Global South and the US considers a new one, it is a good moment to listen to voices from (supposed) beneficiary countries on what would work better—because it seems like there is a lot to fix.