At the end of 2025, the PSA’s Executive Committee agreed to re-appoint Professor Rose Gann and Professor John Craig as PSA Chair and PSA Vice-Chair respectively for a second three year term (until spring 2029) In this blog, Rose and John highlight their reasons for standing again, and share their hopes for what they wish to achieve in their second term:
Professors Rose Gann and John Craig discuss their recent appointment to a second term of office as PSA Chair and Vice-Chair.
Providing leadership and strategic direction for an organisation like the PSA is a great privilege. Both of us have been involved with the PSA’s work, networks and specialist groups for many years and have found the sense of community and support through our prior roles as trustees and network/specialist group leads enormously rewarding.
What we achieved in our first term
During our first term as Chair and Vice-Chair (2023-2026) we have developed and launched the PSA’s Strategic Plan (2025 – 2028) setting out an ambitious plan to advocate for the discipline, support members, develop excellence in teaching, scholarship and research as well as promote and sustain a diverse community of students, scholarship and practitioners. It is hard to believe that we are just completing the first year of this plan and can already report that progress has been made on all aspects. We have fed into the British Academy’s report on the health of Politics and International Relations, engaged with HoDs/HoS, alongside sister learned associations (BISA/UACES), to provide a much needed space to discuss the challenges facing the discipline, developed our PSA fellowship scheme through the appointment of founding fellows, supported the diverse voices programme and worked closely with chair/deputy chair of UoA19 sub-panel to ensure that members are appraised of next steps for REF2029. Alongside this we have supported a strong and vibrant community of specialist groups and enhanced the governance of our two networks – early careers and teaching and learning. Through the careful and hard work of our trustees and PSA staff team we have successfully overseen a new 5-year publishing agreement with SAGE Publishing – securing vital income and knowledge exchange opportunities to support members – and approved investment projects to develop the PSA’s new website and CRM, vital work that is underway but still on-going.
Why we were so keen to stand again
Our motivation to stand for a second term of office evolved from both our desire to continue this work and see through the next stages of the Strategic Plan, as well as our awareness of the need for stability and continuity of leadership in these highly uncertain and challenging times for the HE Sector.
We are both keen to see the next stages of the PSA’s Strategic Plan come to fruition. Years two and three of the strategic plan includes building upon and developing our external work around advocacy for the study of Politics, completing work on the PSA’s infrastructure, reviewing membership categories and benefits and how we support members at all stages of their academic careers, developing our support and activities to promote and encourage EDI as well as maintaining the support we currently provide for our excellent specialist groups, early careers and teaching and learning networks.
Our motivation is not all just about continuity, however. Another key factor that motivated us to stand for a second term of office is a recognition that whilst needing to be mindful of the PSA’s rich history and the importance of continuity, we also need to ensure that the Association has the ability to change, adapt and take bold decisions – not least in order to navigate and thrive in the rapidly changing HE/Learned Society environment.
Focus and aims or our second term
There are three strategic areas that we have identified, that would like to explore in our second term of office. These will shape our focus as we enter a second term and seek to strengthen and develop the work of the Association. We wish to review and develop the PSA’s strategic direction and governance infrastructure. The eagle-eyed amongst you will note that the PSA’s current Strategic Plan runs to the end of 2028 and our second term of office exceeds beyond this to April 2029. A key goal for our second term therefore is to complete and review progress on the current PSA Strategic Plan (2025-2028), but also, in consultation with membership, to develop and design strategic direction for the PSA post-2028 – including in this succession planning and a review of governance structures. A second strategic area we wish to focus on in our second term is our publishing suite. Our publishing suite is key strength for our Association. We are keen to explore how we can further strengthen this aspect of the Association’s work, and even potentially grow it. Thirdly, we wish to review and explore the potential to diversify our income and to undertake further work on our financial planning and modelling to put the Association in the strongest possible financial position for the coming decade.
We hope this insight into our thoughts and motivation for taking on the reigns again as Chair and Vice-Chair this April 2026 is helpful. We would like to thank the PSA staff team, trustees and all our members for making the PSA such a vibrant and successful political studies community.
We welcome your input
At the heart of the PSA are a broad, international community of members and stakeholders. Please get in touch with us if you would like to discuss any aspect of these plans further or feel we have missed something that you’d like to see more of. We will both be at PSA26 Conference in Oxford for the duration of the event so please come and find us for a chat.
PSA Chair, Professor Rose Gann – Nottingham Trent University
PSA Vice-Chair, Professor John Craig – University of Hull
