Into 2025 - Happy birthday to BISA!
BISA Director and CEO, Juliet Dryden, takes a look back at 2024 and a look ahead to 2025 in this letter to members.
Dear Members
A very happy New Year to you all. With 2024 now behind us, let me start the new year by conveying a message of hope and optimism that a way can be found to secure a peaceful and prosperous 2025 in all the troubled areas of the world.
Here at BISA, there is an exciting and full year ahead. And what a special year ahead it is for BISA as we celebrate our 50th anniversary year!
When BISA was established in January 1975, the ambition was to create a diverse, open and democratic scholarly membership association. From its very beginnings, with much support from Chatham House, LSE and the Foreign Office, and led by BISA’s first treasurer, Professor Susan Strange, there was a strong appetite for specialist working groups, an annual conference, a BISA journal and a regular newsletter. Over the intervening years a succession of BISA Chairs and fellow trustees have kept true to this vision. As we begin 2025, it is tremendous to see that those founding ambitions remain at the very heart of BISA, flourishing and earning the respect of those in the wider discipline.
Our diverse membership is drawn from 44 nations, ranging from students to emeritus professors and policy makers specialising in all aspects of the discipline. I am also delighted to see EDI principles becoming further integrated into BISA with the help of generous financial assistance from the Academy of Social Sciences. As a result, we continue to be the go-to association for International Studies experts and those with an interest in international politics or keeping up with the latest trends in the discipline. It’s encouraging to see membership numbers on the rise year after year, particularly among undergraduate, postgraduate and global scholars. This confirms to us that we are delivering what you need.
Our 27 working groups continue to impress with their research and, along with our Postgraduate Network (PGN), have put on a record number of virtual and in-person events and activities over the year. A full round up of their work in the 2023/2024 academic year is available for you to read. Huge thanks and appreciation must go to every one of our working group conveners and assistants as well as the PGN committee members who work tirelessly to make the magic happen! Alongside this, BISA continues to organise climate change simulations and Model NATO events for students across the higher education spectrum, simultaneously giving them hands on practical experience and introducing them to BISA. Some of our 2024 events were recorded for to enjoy on our YouTube channel.
Both BISA journals, led by new editorial teams in 2024 from the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham, and our well respected book series, have continued to publish an exceptionally high standard of research with the support of our publishers, Cambridge University Press. Do have a look at the latest issues of Review of International Studies and European Journal of International Security for new cutting-edge research. Many Review of International Studies articles have short video abstracts alongside them summarising the key points.
The highlight of 2024 must surely have been the annual conference in Birmingham. With over 1,000 registrations and 288 academically rigorous panels and roundtables over three days, #BISA2024 was the most successful annual conference in BISA’s history! Nothing illustrates how far the Association has matured and kept up with the times in 50 years than when we compare this to the 1975 inaugural conference of six papers and a very select group of scholars in attendance.
We have continued our campaign in defence of the social sciences (and International Studies within this) by building and strengthening coalitions within the Academy of Social Sciences, The British Academy, and other key players such as professional associations, learned societies and relevant funders. We remain committed to supporting colleagues within the International Studies community and continue to hold regular Heads of Department and Heads of Research meetings.
We are also committed to providing annual funds through our Early Career Small Research Grants, Learning and Teaching Grants, and hardship assistance grants for those in the final stages of their PhD through our Founders’ Fund. Nominations for our prestigious 2025 annual prizes, through which we honour outstanding contributions to the discipline in both research and teaching, open on Wednesday 8 January.
I urge you to please renew your memberships on time to get the best out of BISA and ensure we have the funds to continue our work. Please fully engage with our working groups, PGN and journals, register promptly for our upcoming conferences – both virtual and in person in Belfast (registration for the latter opens later this month) - and support BISA in any other way you can. This includes through volunteering for convenerships as they come up, putting your name forward for the BISA Executive and PGN Committee, and any other initiatives we undertake to promote International Studies. This is your Association and we want to ensure you are rewarded for your commitment to us. Please spread the word about our activities amongst your networks. You can even take advantage of three months free membership with our referral scheme. If you are not a member, do please consider joining us. We are open to everyone and have membership discounts for students, ECRs, global scholars and retired members.
What’s on in 2025?
We have some particularly exciting initiatives in 2025 to go alongside established activities, so read on!
Virtual conference 2025 and calendar of events
First up is the inaugural virtual conference taking place in just a few days’ time from 13-15 January. This has been designed with the global International Studies community very much in mind, who are often accepted onto our annual conference programme but are unable to obtain visas to come to the UK. The virtual conference solves this problem and will bring scholars from all corners of the world together to share their research. We also hope the virtual conference will allow those within the UK who have care responsibilities, or are unable to travel to an in person conference for any other reason will embrace this new initiative. We welcome all members and non-members so please take a look at the conference website and register.
Our 2025 calendar of events is taking shape including (to name just a few!): the 8th European Security Working Group annual conference; an Astropolitics Working Group workshop; a panel on East Asian Stability and Power Transitions in the 21st century from the International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East and Asia Working Group; a new series of undergraduate lectures on topical subjects given by our members; our annual Model NATO in partnership with the FCDO; and a talk explaining what REF is for those who are new to it all. Please check our events listing page regularly as it is constantly updated.
Finally, if you are going to #ISA2025 in Chicago in March, please do look out for BISA-sponsored panels and our annual reception promoting our journals and book series. More information will be coming to you soon, and on social media we’ll be using the hashtag #BISAatISA25.
#BISA2025 in Belfast – 50th anniversary conference
We are tremendously excited to be going to Belfast for our 50th annual conference, taking place 18-20 June. We look forward to seeing many of you there. Conference Chair, Dr Nick Caddick, the Queens University conference team, and the BISA team are busy preparing a critically engaging and stimulating programme of panels, roundtables and extra special events under the title ‘BISA’s half century’. It is a wonderful opportunity for you all to meet new connections, reconnect with old friends and colleagues, share your research and learn about what others have been doing.
In addition to three days of over 280 in person panels and roundtables, we have our keynote from Professor Roland Bleiker on ‘Seeing and Sensing World Politics’, a public lecture from Professor Cynthia Enloe on ‘What feminists reveal when they investigate masculinities: The case of military 'manpower’ and a War Studies keynote from Professor Michael Cox on ‘Belfast Days: Teaching War - Living Peace, 1972-1995’ as well as a programme of fringe activities built around the conference. These include a full day of professional development workshops for postgraduate, early-career researchers and mid-career academics on 17 June, a PGN evening for students and conference newcomers, meet the editor events, walking tours around Belfast and of course, the annual BISA reception, which will take place this year at the famous Titanic Museum with a free visit to the galleries thrown in!
Registration will open in a couple of weeks so please sign up to secure your place as soon as possible, whether you are on a panel/roundtable or not. We welcome members and non-members.
New ISA/BISA workshops
From 10-12 October 2025, the International Studies Association (ISA) and BISA will be bringing you a new weekend workshop initiative on ‘Transforming the International: Scholarship and Solidarity in a World of Inequalities’ co-chaired by colleagues at the University of Newcastle. Please watch this space for more details in the coming days.
And finally – the AspIRing Scholars Fund
As we celebrate our 50th year and all the achievements of BISA, we will soon be launching the AspIRing Scholars Fund which we hope will enable us to plan for an ambitious future where we can double, triple or even quadruple the amount of funds available to support the next generation of scholars. Never has there been a greater need to assist new scholars coming into the discipline with their research needs. With your support, however small a contribution you might make, we will build a fund for the future. Please keep an eye out for further details.
Thank you
I know that many of you would like to join me in thanking the BISA trustees and dedicated staff for all the work they do on behalf of the Association. Without the dedication of both, we would not be able to support the community of International Studies scholarship in the way we do. If you have suggestions for how we can improve BISA to serve our membership better, please do get in touch with me at Juliet.Dryden@bisa.ac.uk. I would be very happy to hear from you.
With best wishes for 2025.
Juliet Dryden
Director and CEO
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash