SBP: Collaborative Research: Journeys in World Politics A Mentoring Workshop for Junior Women in International Relations

This project aims to serve the national need of mitigating the underrepresentation of women in science, and therefore contributes to scientific progress. Peer mentorship is one of the most effective avenues to increase the status of women in academia. By providing intense peer-mentorship to junior women scholars of international relations, the project will promote high-quality scholarship and contribute to an increased success of mentored women in academia.

The project will promote these goals through the hosting of intense peer-mentorship workshops to foster networks, provide feedback and support, disseminate information, and encourage psychological resilience. The project also tracks the success of peer-mentorship programs through survey research and a collection of data on academic success.

Studies that have evaluated the status of women in international relations over the past 30-years reveal significant gender gaps on numerous dimensions. The continued under-representation of female scholars at top research institutions and high ranks harms scientific progress. Recent research demonstrates that active mentoring, especially through workshops that foster networks, provide feedback and support, disseminate information, and encourage psychological resilience, are among the most promising avenues for change.

The Journeys in World Politics workshop program has mentored young women scholars of International Relations (IR) since 2004. The project hosts annual three-day workshops that support 18-20 participants and includes research presentations by junior scholars, feedback from discussants, oral autobiographies by senior scholars, and career and gender discussion sessions involving topics such as networking, work-life balance, and navigating classroom gender dynamics.

Beyond the workshops, the project maintains an active website and other forms of communication, arranges meetings at conferences, and thereby builds a broad network of women in the entire political science discipline. To track the success of mentorship workshops, the project collects more systematic data to evaluate the mechanisms through which mentoring programs increase long-term success rates for female political scientists.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.