The British Academy Effective Writing Workshop 2021–22 provided intensive training for early career researchers. British Academy Effective Writing Workshops The early career researcher in India has, on average, very little access to the academic mentoring and networking opportunities that researchers elsewhere would consider fundamental to good scholarship. The British Academy Effective Writing Workshop 2021–22 tackled these concerns faced by early career, post-doctoral, and Ph.D. scholars in India. From learning the basics of publishing in high-impact journals and writing successful research grant applications, to developing national and international professional networks – by the end of this workshop, participants gained valuable and practicable knowledge on how to further their publishing profiles and academic careers. Developed by Dr. Hephizibah Israel (Principal Investigator, University of Edinburgh), Dr. John Thomas (Co-Investigator, IIT Guwahati), and Dr. John Zavos (Co-Investigator, University of Manchester), and funded by the British Academy, this five-day online workshop was delivered to select participants based at the Kerala Centre for Historical Research and many other universities and research institutes across the country. Dr. Hephzibah Israel share her involvement with the British Academy Effective Writing Workshops. How did this collaboration begin? The project began in response to British Academy’s call for applications for collaborations to deliver academic writing workshops as part of its global challenge fund. I contacted institutions such as the Kerala Council for Historical Research and Benaras Hindu University to see if they would be willing to partner with me to deliver these workshops. I also brought together eight South Asian experts across different disciplines to deliver different aspects of the workshop. What’s the current status or progress? The workshop was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. British Academy informed me at the end of January 2020 that my application was successful but within the next three months it was clear that the workshops could not go ahead in person. I requested an extension and the workshops were delivered online (instead of in person) in November-December 2021. What is your dream for the future of this collaborative partnership? For more early career academics in India to research and publish successfully in international journals. What are the key benefits from this joint engagement? I was able to collaborate with a new set of South Asian experts based in India and the UK, so widened my own networks with individual experts and with institutions I had not collaborated with before. The University of Edinburgh Centre for South Asian Studies website now has a set of resources for early career researchers to refer to. Some of these have been used again by others offering similar training in other universities in India, which has benefitted them and given the University more visibility amongst Indian ECRs. What are the persisting challenges that you faced in this collaboration? One challenge is that young researchers seem very enthusiastic to start with but fall away when they are told that they must submit written work. This is unfortunate as this training programme was designed to help each participant specifically with their written work. Only fifty percent of those shortlisted actually submitted their work for feedback. What support from the University of Edinburgh would enhance this partnership? More time allocated to the Principal Investigator who is usually working under multiple workload pressures to deliver projects or training programmes such as this. Discover more British Academy Kerala Centre for Historical Research Visit Dr Hephzibah Israel's profile This article was published on 2024-06-24
