The IAMCR Emerging Scholars’ Network serves all emerging scholars: MA and PhD students, post-docs, new professors, and anyone who feels newer to academia. It was founded in 1998. Created as an informal network, it is now a full-fledged IAMCR section, with representatives in the International Council of the association.
Originally called the Junior Scholars’ Network, its name was changed in 2006. Over the years it kept steadily growing, and its calls for papers attract annually as many as 80 submissions. It is currently chaired by Sara Bannerman and Stefania Milan, whose work is supported by a network of 11 volunteers, helping with everything from keeping the website updated to paper selection to the organization of social events at conferences. The volunteers are Irfan Raja (Social Events Coordinator), Anne Kaun (Mentorship Program Coordinator), Francesca Musiani (Communications Coordinator), Marco Anderle (Web), Michael Dick, Holly Nazar and Sudhamshu Dahal (Committee for Issues affecting Emerging Scholars), Annika Sehl, Jeroen De Keyser and Katie Allen (Abstract Review Committee), and Svetlana Kulikova (Distance Participation Coordinator).
The ESN organizes special events at conferences, offering workshops and advice on a number of issues of concern to emerging scholars. In Mexico City (2009), a roundtable on publishing was organized in collaboration with the graduate journal Platform and experienced IAMCR scholars; in Braga (2010) a special session was dedicated to the Mentorship program, and a second session to publishing. On the occasion of the forthcoming IAMCR annual conference in Istanbul, the special session “Universities in Crisis” (Saturday 16th July, 2:30pm, Cibal room) will discuss how universities, schools and the academic job market are changing in times of global recession, and what challenges these poses to senior and emerging scholars, as well as to IAMCR as a leading academic association in the field of media and communication studies. The roundtable is organized by ESN member Holly Nazar, and contributions include invited submissions and papers selected through a dedicated call for papers. We like to see it as part of the ESN’s attempt at making IAMCR an inclusive space, for example by lowering access barriers to the association for the “new” precarious academic workers.
ESN is the point of entry for many new members to the association. In view of encouraging fruitful encounters amongst different generations of scholars, the ESN seeks connections with the other thematic IAMCR sections, and promotes cross-fertilization: in Istanbul, for example, many of the ESN panels are linked to other IAMCR sections. Senior scholars from other sections have been invited, and kindly agreed, to serve as respondents to ESN papers, which often are works in progress.
The ESN encourages the publication of works by its members. Since 2009, the ESN has established a special connection with the graduate journal Platform: Journal of Media and Communication. By statute, one of the ESN co-chairs sits in the editorial board of the journal.
The ESN is particularly proud of its Mentorship Programme, which was constituted with the aim of connecting emerging scholars just entering the field of academia with established scholars. The ESN, as the coordinator of the programme, connects mentees with mentors according to their interests and specializations. Matches are announced before the annual conference to make a face-to-face-meeting possible. Mentors and mentees are invited to participate in a fruitful conversation throughout the year following the conference, and in some cases even beyond. After one year the ESN asks the participants to evaluate the programme and share their experiences.
“I was matched with my mentor, Robin Mansell, at the Stockholm conference in 2008,” says Sara Bannerman, now Co-Chair of the ESN. “Professor Mansell has been a wonderful mentor to me over the past three years; she has given me lots of helpful advice at IAMCR conferences--and also by email--on my work, on directions I could go, people I should talk to, and on employment and research paths.”
The mentorship programme is a great opportunity for emerging scholars to discuss their work in progress with established researchers of their subfields, build a sustained network and get involved in the international academic community. For information about pre-requisites, guidelines for mentors and mentees and procedures for getting involved, please check our website.