ECD at PEC 2019

At the 2019 EISA pan-European conference (PEC) in Sofia, the EISA’s Early Career Development Group (ECD) had an action-packed program lined up. The ECD Group organized two workshops as part of its ‘Demystifying IR’ series and a café-style discussion, where scholars at various stages in their careers came together to discuss and debate central questions and concepts in IR in an informal setting. These ECD activities focused on three main themes: glass ceilings in IR, publishing and early career development, and deconstructing concepts from an international point of view.

The glass ceilings workshop opened with an inspiring talk by Joanne Yao after which strategies were discussed to better engage with inequality and privilege in IR. During the workshop, participants also shared the challenges and victories they have encountered in practice. The publishing and early career development workshop was held in a similar open-forum discussion that focused on best practices to emulate and challenges to manage in the academic profession. Both workshops were attended by a variety of early-, mid- and advanced-level scholars and provided a unique platform outside of conference panels to discuss experiences and expertise relevant to early career scholars and beyond. The ECD group also organized an IR Café, ‘Deconstructing Concepts from an International Point of View’, which provided an intimate setting for scholars to discuss important concepts in IR, such as identity and security, in addition to methodological concerns with a senior scholar.