Early Career Network

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THE PSA'S EPOP ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024 AND THE ROLE OF THE ECN

Arvind Kumar and Matthew Hepplewhite

The Election, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Annual Conference 2024 was held at the University of Manchester between 12 and 13 September 2024. The conference, which represents a major event in the field of election studies, was particularly special this year since more than 50 countries had recently conducted elections. The conference was hosted by the University of Manchester’s Politics Department, with Nicole Martin and Marta Cantijoch leading the organising committee. The committee also included well-known scholars such as Maria Sobolewska, Jack Bailey, Lotte Hargrave, and Dishil Shrimankar. The conference was sponsored by seven prominent organisations, namely the Journal of Election, Public Opinion and Parties, Survation, Ipsos, YouGov, University of Manchester Politics Department, Electoral Studies, and Manchester University Press. It attracted over 200 attendees and featured 40 panels and 2 roundtable discussions, providing a broad platform for engaging with diverse research topics.

This year’s conference left a strong impression, not only because of its scale and the depth of research presented but also due to the supportive and inclusive environment created for scholars at various stages of their careers. In the following, we provide a critical reflection on some of the key features that made EPOP 2024 an exceptional academic event. We particularly focus on the significance of this conference for early career academics and the role of the PSA’s Early Career Network (ECN) in facilitating the conference.

ECN day

The PSA’s ECN, in collaboration with EPOP, organised a specific day for early career academics, held on 11 September 2024, the day before the full conference began.

We organised 7 panels at which early career academics could present their research - 24 early career academics took advantage of this opportunity and presented their work and received feedback. We would like to thank the chairs of these panels – Lotte Hargrave, Rob Ford, Marta Cantijoch, Dishil Shrimankar, and James Griffiths – for being so generous with their time.

Read more about the ECN day here.

Politics Today – The 2024 PSA Early Career Network Conference

Between 15 and 19 July 2024 we at the PSA’s Early Career Network (ECN) held our online conference, entitled Politics Today. We chose to hold an online, rather than in-person, conference so that those who do not have the financial resources to attend conferences – the costs of which are steep – could participate.

We chose an innovative format – a mix of live online sessions and prerecorded panels. The panels were prerecorded as we wanted to make the panels available to as wide an audience as possible.

The panels could not have been held without the panel chairs nor the live events without the panellists. We managed to assemble a wonderful group of leading scholars – see below for details – and we are extremely grateful that they agreed to give up their time to help early career scholars. We are also very grateful to Maria Sobolewska for an engrossing keynote address.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the other members of the ECN executive committee. As we have learnt, organising conferences is a Herculean task, and we could not have done it without all the executive members undertaking a great deal of hard – and unpaid – work. I would therefore like to thank Daniel Bowman (Events officer), Niamh Cashell (Secretary), Manuel Hernández-González (Communications officer), and Stephanie Luke (Treasurer) for everything they did to make the conference a reality.

We held four live online sessions, hosted by members of the ECN executive committee.

Grants for early career academics

Hosted by Matthew Hepplewhite, with panellists Dr Roula Nezi (University of Surrey) and Dr Will Allen (University of Oxford)

Articles versus thesis PhD

Hosted by Manuel Hernández-González, with panellists Dr Vanessa Cheng-Matsuno, Charlie Bradley, Pablo Valdivieso Kastner, and Rebecca Brown

UK/Australia early career networks collaboration event

Hosted by Niamh Cashell, with panellists Phoebe Hayman, Josh Sunman, Francesco Vittonetto, and Dr Leoni Connah

British Academy event

Hosted by Stephanie Luke, with panellists Peris Thuo and Anastasia Shanaah

We were delighted to award a number of prizes – you can find out more about the winners, and read the ‘view from a paricipant’ here.

Resources for Early Career Researchers

A Discussion on Academic Publishing

Matthew Hepplewhite and Dr Stephanie Luke

Publishing is an increasingly important aspect of an academic career, and it can be hard to navigate the process as an early career academic. At last year’s conference, held in Glasgow at the University of Strathclyde, the PSA’s Early Career Network held a roundtable session with a number of leading figures in academic publishing.

We were incredibly fortunate to have the following people on our roundtable: Elizabeth Evans (editor of Politics), Justin Fisher (editor of Political Studies Review), Nick Allen (publications lead for the PSA), Peter Geoghegan (editor of Political Insight), Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (editor of Political Studies), Sophie Donnelly (senior publishing editor at Sage), and Richard Hayton (editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations (BJPIR)). We are indebted to them for giving up their time and imparting their knowledge.

We have compiled an article which outlines the panellists’ comments and advice so that early career academics can benefit from their wisdom, advice, tips, and warnings and covers:

• Which journal should I submit to?
• To include a cover letter or not?
• The review process
• Finding reviewers
• Responding to reviewers
• Being the reviewer
• Representing the underrepresented in journals
• Beware predators
• An audience beyond academia?

Read the full article here.

ECR Development and Advice

Early Career Researchers: Careers and Skills Development 
https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/developing-people-and-skills/ahrc/early-career-researchers-career-and-skills-development/ 

Carvalho. E (2023). Dos and do-Overs for Early Career Researchers. Times Higher Education. [Online] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/dos-and-doovers-reflections-life-early-career-researcher 

Methods Schools

ECPR Summer and Winter Methods School - https://ecpr.eu/Events/EventTypeDetails.aspx?EventTypeID=5 
Essex Summer School - https://essexsummerschool.com/ 

Engagement 

Luke, S., & Dommett, K. (2024). Top Tips for Academics Engaging with the Media. Political Insight, 15(2), 24-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/20419058241260786

Bowman. D. and Hepplewhite. M. (2024). From Research to Policy: A 5-Step Guide to Effective Engagement with Policymakers and increased visibility of research. [Online]                            https://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/from-research-to-policy-a-5-step-guide-to-effective-engagement-with-policymakers-and-increased-visibility-of-research/ 

How to engage with the UK Parliament                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/research-impact-at-the-uk-parliament/training-and-events/online-training-for-researchers/parliament-for-early-career-researchers-online-training-session/ 

Publishing and Blogs 

Hepplewhite. M. and Luke. S. (2024). Academic Publishing Guidance for Early Career Scholars: Insights from Editors' Roundtable. [Online]                                                                    blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/academic-publishing-guidance-for-early-career-scholars-insights-from-an-editors-roundtable/ 

Oxford Politics Blog (2014). Academic Blogging. [Online] Available at: https://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/academic-blogging-political-analysis-digital-age/ 

LSE Blog - Academic Blogging. [Online] Available at: https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/services/knowledge-exchange-and-impact/kei-guide/academic-blogging 

McCloskey-Gholikhany. J. To Blog or not to Blog... UACES. [Online]  https://www.uaces.org/resources/articles/academic-blogging-career 

LSE Guide to publishing and scholarly communication - https://www.lse.ac.uk/library/assets/documents/guide-to-publishing-and-scholarly-comms.pdf 

Blog Opportunities 

LSE Blogs - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ 
LSE offers a range of research blogs (i.e. British Politics and European Politics) that you can write about your research or a paper that you have just published. 

PSA Blog 
​Pitch your ideas to comms@psa.ac.uk

UK in a Changing Europe - https://ukandeu.ac.uk/analysis/ 
You can write a blog about anything that relates to UK-EU relations.