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Early Career Network
About the Early Career Network
The PSA is delighted to welcome the new members of the ECN committee who took up their roles in September 2025.
Angeliki, Aruni, Leah and Sebastian join Mike Bolt, who is a member of the committee for another year, and Arvind Kumar who continues to represent the ECN on the PSA's EDI Working Group until April '26.
Watch this space for initiatives and upcoming events currently being planned - all aimed at supporting and guiding early career researchers and academics. And look out for comms/social posts coming soon from our new ECN!
We would like to thank the outgoing ECN committee members for the huge amount of work they carried out in their two-year term - you can see some of their many achievements below!
Thank you Matt Hepplewhite, Danny Bowman, Manuel Hernandez-Gonzalez and Stephanie Luke.
Previous ECN Activities
ECN Annual Conference 2025: Politics in an Age of Uncertainty, 21 - 24 July 2025
The Political Studies Association Early Career Network's (PSA ECN) held a very succesful online annual conference for 2025, focuses on the theme of “Politics in an Age of Uncertainty”.
The conference welcomes presenters from countries all over the world who shared their cutting-edge research.
The early career and PhD community are at the forefront of political research, and we were delighted to provide a platform to celebrate and discuss this work. Thank you to all those who submitted papers and registered for this conference!
As is the ECN tradition, we awarded prizes to the best papers across the three days of conference. Our congratulations go to:
Vlad Surdea-Hernea, The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, ‘The Populist Spiral: How Populist Rhetoric Spreads Within Party Systems’
Hoju Cheong, University of California, Riverside, ‘Does Electoral Reform Always Create a Better Representation? Presidential Powers and Forms of Government’
Il Gyu Lee, University of Turku, ‘Explaining Inaction: North Korea’s Strategic Restraint in Times of Political Crisis in South Korea’
Irine Kurtanidze, Queen Mary University of London, ‘Between Fear and Hope: Emotional Electoral Mobilisation in Hybrid Regimes – Georgia as a case study’
Thanks to the generosity of Manchester, Bristol, and Princeton University Presses, these winners received books which will help them with their studies.
Full details of papers and presenters.
ECN activities at the PSA25 Annual Conference are detailed on page 23 of PSA News!
Higher Education in Britain: A Roundtable Discussion
In April 2025, the Early Career Network (ECN) hosted an online event focusing on the future of higher education in the UK, chaired by Daniel Bowman, PhD candidate in Politics at the University of Liverpool and Events Officer for the ECN committee. We are extremely grateful to our distinguished panellists who were asked what they envisaged the biggest changes to higher education in the UK would be over the next ten years. In an absorbing session, they addressed a compelling range of important topics including:
- The changing landscape in UK higher education
- Preparing students for an ever-changing job market
- University Rankings
- Financial management of UK universities
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Career advice
- Entering university
In conclusion: UK higher education faces a changing landscape that poses opportunities and risks to the sector. The observations of our expert panel identified several determinants driving many of the challenges faced by institutions, including the expansion in student numbers, financial restraints, and increased global competition. The panel provided a range of observations on and solutions to these issues, emphasising the need to reorganise the delivery of courses, enhance student experience, and adapt to technological developments. While concerns were raised, the panel struck an optimistic note, highlighting that while universities face many challenges, these are not insurmountable.
Read the full report from Matthew Hepplewhite (University of Oxford and University of Tokyo) and Daniel J. Bowman (University of Liverpool) here.
Politics Today – The 2024 PSA Early Career Network Conference
Between 15 and 19 July, the ECN held our online conference, entitled Politics Today. We decided 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 can be 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.
We managed to assemble a wonderful group of leading scholars 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.
We have learnt that organising conferences is a Herculean task, and we could not have done it without all the committee members undertaking a great deal of hard work.
We held four live online sessions, hosted by members of the ECN executive committe, and 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
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.
Other Useful information
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
PSA Blog - pitch your ideas to comms@psa.ac.uk
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].
UK in a Changing Europe - https://ukandeu.ac.uk/analysis/ - you can write a blog about anything that relates to UK-EU relations.
Angeliki Martinou (Chair)
Institution: Brunel University
Michael Bolt
Institution: University of Cardiff
Sebastian Ludwicki-Ziegler
Institution: Glasgow International College
Aruni Samarakoon
Institution: University of Hull
Leah Rea
Institution: School of Law, Ulster University
Arvind Kumar
Institution: Royal Holloway, University of London
Email: ecn@psa.ac.uk
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