Parachutes, partnerships and pilots: Indigenous people re‐setting research in a jointly managed protected area

Research is integral to protected area (PA) management, but to be effective, it should be responsive to local needs, priorities and expertise. Recent research has highlighted the risks of ‘parks parachuting’, where research is done by external researchers without collaboration with, or even acknowledgment of, the national park agency (NPA).

Indigenous peoples are increasingly recognised for their role in conservation and PA management and should be an integral party in research, particularly where this occurs in jointly managed PAs.

We use Kakadu National Park (northern Australia) as a case study, and we used an analysis of authorship patterns of peer‐reviewed publications to demonstrate the need for more inclusive research collaborations with Indigenous people.

We then describe an Indigenous‐led collaborative research project that developed a strategy to improve collaboration and we identify key decisions and actions that demonstrate the positive role that external researchers played in empowering Indigenous people in research.

Synthesis and applications . We make 10 general recommendations to foster equitable and inclusive research collaborations centred on Indigenous‐led partnerships, applicable across a range of contexts.