Dear friends and colleagues,
We are honoured that the past Governing Board and the General Assembly trusted us in our new roles of President, Executive Secretary and Treasurer of EISA. We wanted to congratulate the past Presidency and Board for their extremely remarkable achievements and give you a quick update to highlight some of our immediate plans and objectives for the association.
In the last two years, PEC and EWIS have continued to see increased interest and participation from our members. The EISA-OUP series ‘Voices in International Relations’ has published its first titles, and our rich programme of online events and our podcast (Voices: the EISA podcast) have continued to attract a wide audience. Building on the success of our Postdoctoral Bridge Grants, the EISA has also launched the Fieldwork Grant and significantly enhanced the provision of mobility funds for EWIS and PEC. We would like to extend our gratitude to the outgoing President Beste İşleyen, Executive Secretary Sonia Lucarelli, and Treasurer Corina Lacatus for leading this work and guiding the association over the past years. We also extend our sincerest thanks to the other members of the Governing Board who recently completed their mandate, Debbie Lisle and Thierry Balzacq. We are lucky to welcome Laura Horn, Sibel Karadağ, Iratxe Perea Ozerin, Francesco Ragazzi and Rens Van Munster as new Board members. They join us and the continuing members of the Board Beatrix Futak-Campbell, Magdalena Kozub-Karkut, Polly Pallister-Wilkins, and Revecca Pedi.
For the 2025-2027 term, we will continue to build on these strong foundations to reinforce the EISA’s role as an inclusive and diverse association for the IR community in Europe and beyond. We will be directing our attention to:
- Working, wherever possible, to accommodate greater participation at PEC, while ensuring this growth remains sustainable and true to the spirit of the Pan-European Conference.
- Continuing to explore event locations that pose fewer mobility barriers for colleagues coming from outside Europe.
- Keep the level of support offered through the Mobility Fund under review, especially in the context of worsening working conditions in the academic sector across Europe.
- Expanding our work on career development, by renewing our commitment to supporting Early Career colleagues, and developing new initiatives aimed at other sections of the membership.
- Support the implementation of the mission statement recently included in our Constitution through work in our portfolio on Academic Values & Sustainability.
We all look forward to seeing you at our forthcoming events. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any feedback or if you would like to take part in EISA activities.
Daniela Lai (President), Nora El Qadim (Executive Secretary) and Joana Ricarte (Treasurer)
