Dear SGIR members,
We hope you and your families are safe and in a good mood!
2020 has been quite hard for most of us, forcing us to change our research and teaching habits. As health and security are our first priority, we had to interrupt large numbers of planned activities and adapt our initiatives to the current conditions.
Despite restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the ECPR SGIR has been quite active.
We endorsed a considerable number of sections at the virtual ECPR General Conference, on 24-28 August 2020. During the conference, SGIR hosted a virtual business meeting, open to all conference participants, in which we reported on the very healthy SGIR budget, our successful enhanced endorsement policy for panels, sections and workshops at ECPR events and our publication strategy, producing a very constructive and fruitful discussion among members attending.
We also endorsed a section at the 14th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (organized by the European International Studies Association EISA), which will take place in September 2021.
We introduced a new Online Seminar Series in International Relations in order to support scholarly exchange in the field, create extra presentation opportunities for our members, and have them benefit from expert discussants on their topic from among our rich membership. This project comprises online seminars showcasing cutting-edge research in international relations and a workshop particularly geared towards early career researchers.
As part of our editorial activities, we are happy to inform you that Prof. IR Carmela Lutmar from the University of Haifa has been appointed associate editor of PRX, the ECPR’s first Open Access journal, and we are continuing to expand the IR presence in the editorial boards of all ECPR journals by endorsing further applicants.
Moreover, we continue to contribute to the management of the Hedley Bull Prize, this year awarded to George Lawson, for his book Anatomies of Revolution (CUP, 2019). We are also happy to announce that effective from next year the Hedley Bull Prize Award Committee will comprise an additional SGIR member strengthening the representation of the field of IR in the prize jury.
Furthermore, jointly with EISA, we continue to manage the European Journal of International Relations, the ECPR peer-reviewed flagship journal in IR. A call for a new editorial team to take over in late 2021 has now been circulated. We wish to thank the present Editor-in-Chief, Geoffrey Underhill, and the editorial team, Ben Scandrett, Luc Fransen, Annette Freyberg-Inan, Darshan Vigneswaran, Lee Seymour, and formerly also Marlies Glasius for their exceptional work and their eagerness to work with us to pass the journal onto very able hands again.
Finally, we are delighted to confirm that consultations with the ECPR Press editors, in partnership with Rowman & Littlefield, have been finalized for the launch of a new SGIR book series in International Relations and Global Politics. Please do submit your manuscripts to the Series as soon as it launched.
We all know it is not easy to plan future events because of the unpredictability of the current situation in Europe and in the rest of the world. Despite this, we can confirm that more sections have already been endorsed and accepted at the upcoming ECPR General Conference (Innsbruck, August 31 – September 03, 2021), as well as a workshop at the ECPR Joint Sessions (Charles University, Prague, May 25–28, 2021).
We had to cancel the 2020 ECPR-SGIR Summer School in International Relations, but plans are well underway to hold a virtual Summer School on IR in 2021, organized by the University of Antwerp. Do encourage current and new members to apply.
None of these initiatives would have been possible without your constant support.
We wish you a pleasant winter break and happy holidays!
May 2021 prove to be a fresh start for all of us!
All the best,
Dirk De Bièvre (University of Antwerp)
Daniela Irrera (University of Catania)
Nikitas Konstantinidis (IE University)
Nora Stappert (University of Leeds)
Andreas von Staden (Universität Hamburg)
