RIS Book Mentorship Program

About the program

The RIS Book Mentorship Program is a support program for scholars who are working towards their first academic book publication, on a topic related in some way to international students through a critical lens. By participating in the program, your book would be labelled as ‘supported by Research with International Students (RIS)’ and you would be assigned a scholarly mentor who has previous experience with publishing a book in this field. Your mentor would:

• Meet with you once to discuss your book idea and how to navigate publishing
• Provide written feedback on your book proposal before you submit it to a publisher 
• Be available via email to answer any questions you might have while navigating the signing of a contract with a publisher 
• Meet with you once or twice while you are writing your book to discuss progress and provide any needed advice

After your book is published, the Research with International Students (RIS) network will:

• Work with you to publish a blog about your book 
• Arrange a formal book launch webinar 
• Advertise your book on our social media and newsletter 
• Officially designate your book as ‘supported by Research with International Students’ on our website

This program is free to participate in. In return, we just ask that the acknowledgements page in your future book mention Research with International Students (RIS) and your mentor by name. 

Please note that this program does not guarantee a pathway to publication, which is dependent upon your book’s acceptance by a selected academic publisher. Our network and your mentor are only here to support you with the application process.

Please read the following details to determine if this program is a good fit for you:

Who is eligible to apply?

Anyone who is leading on writing or editing an academic book for the first time is welcome to apply. We open this broadly to mean anyone who has never navigated the academic book publishing process before, such as those who have never authored or edited their own book previously. If you have authored or edited an academic book before, we ask that you please reserve resources from this program for colleagues who have not had such experiences before. You are still eligible if you have published book chapters or academic journal articles before, so long as this is your first major leadership role in developing an academic book.

We welcome scholars at any career stage to apply (i.e., you do not need to be an early career researcher). We also do not expect that you have completed a PhD or have an institutional affiliation, so long as you are a practicing researcher with the intention of publishing your first academic book.

If your book is authored or edited by multiple people, we ask that the first author make the application to this program (you are welcome to work with your mentor together as a team, though). If you are co-authoring or co-editing with a colleague who ahs experience publishing a book before, we ask that you seek mentorship from them rather than through this program.

At what stage do you need to be at to apply?

To apply, you should be at a stage where you have put some serious reflection into the topic and scope of the book you want to publish. You should know the potential title and topic of your book, and be able to write a brief abstract (approx 300 words) about its intended scope. You do not need to have approached a publisher yet (or even know how to!). If your book is an edited volume, you do not need to have chapter authors identified yet. 

Generally, you don’t need to have all the answers yet, but to protect your mentor’s time, we just ask that you be at a stage where you have an explicit idea you want to take forward for a book and are ready to commit to writing it. If we feel through reading your application that it is not refined enough yet, we will contact you with some feedback for further refinement before assigning you a mentor. We highly advise taking plenty of time to reflect on your book idea and its feasibility before applying. 

Is there a review process for applications?

RIS will do a light-touch review of this application to ensure its fit to the intended scope and ethos of our network. Generally, this means that we support books which:

• Focus topically on issues related to international students (broadly defined) and mobilities in higher education 
• Take a critical lens about the topic in scope 
• Are mindful and critical about limitations in our existing field (including, but not limited to: biases, prejudices, xenophobia, racism, and/or coloniality) 

Please note we do not support books which perpetuate deficit framings of international students. 

How many applicants can you support?

Depending on mentor availability, we will aim to support as many applicants as possible. However, this depends entirely on how many people apply and how many people agree to mentor. We reserve the right to pause this program for short periods in the future if we reach capacity.

Who are the mentors?

We have identified a bank of mentors who have published at least one book related to international students or the internationalisation of higher education. Most of these mentors are mid-career or more senior colleagues in the field who can share their experiences of the academic book publishing processes. In the application form (see below), you can make suggestions for potential mentors (their assignment is subject to their availability).

What if I have other questions?

You can submit your questions via our Contact Us page. 

How do I apply?

You can apply via the following form:

There is no deadline to apply, and we welcome applications on a rolling basis with no intended program closing date. We highly advise not to apply in a rush and to take plenty of time to think through your idea for the book you want to publish first.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.