While we endorse the target article’s call for inclusivity throughout the entire research process, its framing implicitly assumes that global research is, or should be, led and conducted primarily by Western researchers, with local researchers serving in secondary or supporting roles. This assumption decreases the impact of the argument. Inclusive theories require local researchers who spearhead research conducted within their own communities, as principal investigators and lead authors as opposed to merely research assistants or collaborators.

Local researchers hold deep linguistic fluency, cultural competence, and nuanced social understanding that strengthen research design, ensure contextual validity, foster ethical engagement with participants, and minimize research costs. In addition to the key roles that they play in generating valid measurements and appropriate interpretations of results, local researchers facilitate ethical engagement between researchers and participants, as they are able to gain and maintain trust from their own community. For example, through their first-hand understanding of local economies, local researchers are better able to set compensation for study participation at ethical rates (i.e., appealing but not coercive). In addition to the experiences and perspectives that global researchers bring to the theoretical enterprise, these practical ingredients of linguistic fluency, sociocultural competence, and economic familiarity are critical for executing high-quality research and building valid, inclusive theories (Ghai et al., Reference Ghai, Thériault, Forscher, Shoda, Syed, Puthillam, Peng, Basnight-Brown, Majid, Azevedo and Singh2025; Singh, Reference Singh2022).

Realizing this vision requires confronting entrenched structural barriers in research. Globally inclusive research is challenging even for Western researchers in well-resourced institutions. Measurement across contexts is expensive and difficult, and research conducted in underrepresented contexts is often held to a higher standard during the peer review process and is thus more difficult to disseminate (Draper et al., Reference Draper, Barnett, Cook, Cuartas, Howard, McCoy, Merkley, Molano, Maldonado-Carreño, Obradovic, Scerif, Valentini, Venetsanou and Yousafzai2023). Developmental scientists outside of Western contexts face additional barriers. For example, research institutions in low-to-middle-income countries typically have fewer financial resources than research institutions in high-income countries. Research institutions in low-to-middle-income countries may also prioritize applied research (Rochmyaningsih, Reference Rochmyaningsih2016), leaving fewer opportunities for researchers to conduct basic developmental science. This can lead to smaller professional networks and fewer opportunities for collaboration.

To overcome these challenges, researchers, funders, and policymakers should prioritize short- and long-term capacity building. For example, the Learning Variability Network Exchange initiative (LEVANTE; Frank et al., Reference Frank, Baumgartner, Braginsky, Kachergis, Lightbody, Sparks, Zhu, Carlson, Graham, Lipina, Newcombe, Odgers, Pianta, Siegler, Snowling, Yoshikawa and Dodge2025) provides both research funding and professional mentorship to a network of global sites involved in data collection. Specifically, local researchers typically spearhead measurement adaptation and data collection at each LEVANTE site, ensuring customized, contextually appropriate adaptations of the LEVANTE core tasks. Local researchers can also include additional measures alongside the LEVANTE core tasks, thus allowing local researchers to advance developmental science in ways that are relevant for their own research programs and local communities. Further, sites receive substantial financial, technical, and professional support through membership in the global LEVANTE network. Similarly, ManyBabies (Frank et al., Reference Frank, Bergelson, Bergmann, Cristia, Floccia, Gervain and Yurovsky2017) creates a global collaborative network of developmental scientists and explicitly encourages efforts to increase inclusivity and diversity in regard to contributors, populations studied, and research questions. These “big team science” efforts help developmental psychologists worldwide conduct rigorous, contextually grounded research.

Moreover, building equitable research partnerships requires more than resource sharing. It demands inclusive practices that recognize and elevate the expertise of scholars from low-to-middle-income countries. Developmental scientists should strive for the equitable integration of low-to-middle-income country scholars into global research communities through formal doctoral training opportunities, equitable co-authorship practices, and leadership roles in collaborative projects. Training opportunities in high-income countries can provide low-to-middle-income country researchers with both intellectual and economic opportunities that cannot be found closer to home. To ensure that researchers from low-to-middle-income countries are competitive for training opportunities abroad, the field must also engage in responsible authorship practices (Adame, Reference Adame2021; Ghai et al., Reference Ghai, Thériault, Forscher, Shoda, Syed, Puthillam, Peng, Basnight-Brown, Majid, Azevedo and Singh2025). Publications should include at least one local co-author with firsthand knowledge of the context in which the research was conducted. Publications without local co-authors risk omitting critical intellectual contributions from local researchers or may indicate low-quality research (e.g., involving inappropriate methods or consenting procedures).

Capacity building can be a slow process. For example, we acknowledge that while the present commentary includes a mix of authors from both well-resourced and under-resourced contexts, it is led primarily by authors from well-resourced Western contexts. Still, we encourage more experienced or well-resourced researchers to genuinely collaborate with researchers and formally supervise student trainees from less well-resourced contexts. These collaborations serve as initial steps towards the final goal of empowering researchers from diverse global backgrounds to spearhead their own research.

In conclusion, while the target article focuses on diversifying the participant pool, we argue that achieving the goal of global inclusivity in developmental science necessitates diversifying the researcher community as well. Local researchers closest to the cultural and social context should shape the research questions, methods, and interpretations. This means creating pathways for researchers from underrepresented and less-resourced contexts to lead projects, define priorities, and collaborate as equal partners, rather than merely act as data collectors. Such a shift could spark new research questions grounded in lived realities, broaden the range of developmental phenomena studied, and significantly increase inquiry in diverse communities. The result would be a field that not only reflects on but also actively learns from the full breadth of human experience.