The numbers 2026 in 3D yellow on a black background

Into 2026 - A new year grounded in our founding ambitions

BISA Director and CEO, Juliet Dryden, takes a look back at 2025 and a look ahead to 2026 in this letter to members.

Dear Members

A very happy New Year to you all!  With 2025 now firmly 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 2026 in all the many troubled areas of the world. 

Here at BISA, the team have returned with renewed energy and passion for the year ahead.  We have several new initiatives to launch throughout the coming months, and are excited to see your response to these and how they develop. You can read more about them under ‘What’s on in 2026/27’ below.

In 2025, our 50th anniversary year, we were reminded of BISA’s founding vision to create a scholarly membership association that is diverse, open and democratic, with a strong appetite for specialist working groups, an annual conference, a BISA journal and a regular newsletter. As we begin 2026, it is tremendous to see those founding ambitions remain at the very heart of BISA - flourishing and earning the respect of those in the wider discipline.

We delight in being  the ‘go-to’ association for International Studies and Politics, and keeping up with the latest trends in the discipline. We now intend to strengthen and build on this success by encouraging wider and more diverse participation in our working groups, our many events, and our annual conference - anticipating a year of collaborative growth and development in all areas. With a generous grant from the Academy of Social Sciences in 2025, it is wonderful to see EDI principles integrated into BISA, while we remain fully aware there is continuous work to be done in this area. Our membership is now drawn from close to 50 nations, and includes members who range from emeritus professors to students to policy makers who specialise in all aspects of the discipline. I am very encouraged to see membership numbers rise year after year, the majority of whom are still scholars working in our higher education institutes, but see particular growth among global scholars encouraged by low membership fees, postgraduates who are drawn to the Postgraduate Network (PGN) and, increasingly, undergraduates. This confirms to us that we are delivering the right mix of activities to the full range of our membership.

Our 26 working groups continue to impress with their research and pedagogical approaches, and, along with the PGN, have put on a record number of virtual and in-person events and activities over the year. You can read a full round up of their amazing work on our website. Huge thanks and appreciation must go to the 101 volunteer working group conveners and assistants, and our PGN committee members who work tirelessly to make the magic happen!  We are very grateful to you all for the outstanding work you do to keep the research going when we know you are already at full capacity with your professions.

Alongside working group and PGN events, we continue to deliver to the next generation  with events such as the popular climate change simulation in partnership with Chatham House, and Model NATO in partnership with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Over 200 students from across the higher education spectrum attend these events annually, giving them hands on practical experience reproducing the negotiations held under the UNFCCC, negotiations held at NATO committees and introducing them to BISA. Some of our 2025 events, including special 50th anniversary ones have been recorded for you to enjoy on our YouTube channel.

We are committed to providing annual funds on application to our working groups and PGN for in-person events, and to individual members through our Early Career Small Research Grants and Learning and Teaching Grants. In 2025 we allocated a total of £42,650 in grants and travel bursaries. We have also launched the AspIRing Scholars Fund in support of the next generation of scholars, and I wish to thank all of you who have generously donated to this fund. Never has there been a greater need to assist younger scholars coming into the discipline with their research needs. With your support, however small a contribution you might make, we hope to build up a fund for the future. We will also soon be opening the call for the prestigious 2026 annual prizes through which we honour outstanding contributions to the discipline in both research and teaching. Please look out for this on Tuesday 6 January.

Both BISA journals, led by dedicated editorial teams from the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham, and our well respected book series, have continued to publish an exceptionally high standard of research in our world-renowned journals, Review of International Studies and the European Journal of International Security with the support of our publishers, Cambridge University Press. Do have a look at the latest issues for new cutting-edge research.

The highlight of 2025 was surely the 50th anniversary conference in Belfast. With 1,250 delegates and 342 academically rigorous panels and roundtables over three days, #BISA2025 was the most successful annual conference in BISA’s history! Thank you to all our members and those who support BISA for making it such an intellectually stimulating and socially active conference. As we look ahead to the next conference in Brighton in 2026, where we will explore the theme ‘Is International Studies ready for what comes next? New thinking, new directions’, I can announce that we received a record number of submissions, suggesting there is a huge appetite to bring the community together each year. We ae excited to see you and intend to make our beach-side venue a very special conference indeed!

We have also 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 the International Studies Association and other professional associations, learned societies and relevant funders. We remain committed to supporting colleagues within the International Studies community and continue to hold regular informal Heads of Department and Heads of Research meetings - particularly in light of REF2029.

As the year begins, I urge you to please renew your membership 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 later this month for our upcoming conference in Brighton, and support BISA in any other way you can. This includes through volunteering for convenorships as they come up, putting your name forward as a BISA trustee or a member of the PGN committee when the election process opens again in early March and July respectively, 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 do 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 2026/27?

We have some exciting new initiatives in 2026 joining our established activities - so make sure you read on!

Policy labs: We will be introducing a series of policy labs throughout the year to connect academics and policy makers on specific topics.  The first will be on some broad themes around Artificial Intelligence (AI). If this is your area of expertise, please look out for the call and consider putting your name forward.

Undergraduate Network: We have just launched a new Undergraduate Network (UGN) for students across the UK to hear from academic and policy experts. Run by a committee of undergraduate students, the first event on UK-EU relations will take place at the University of Warwick on 12 February 2026, followed by a networking event, and more events throughout the year. These include a careers talk and an undergraduate workshop the day before our annual conference. For more information take a look at the UGN pages and do spread the news to your students.

Post-92 forum: We will be setting up a post-92 forum. If you are from a post-92 university, please look out for a call where we would like to hear what activities and membership offers might encourage you to become more engaged with BISA.

AI in publishing:  A much called for event to share editors’ experiences of AI issues in publishing. More coming soon.

#ISA2026, Columbus, Ohio: If you are going to ISA 2026 please look out for BISA-sponsored panels and our annual reception promoting our journals and book series taking place on Sunday 22 March 2026.

BISA virtual conference - January 2027: After the success of our first virtual conference in January 2025, we will be holding the second in January 2027. This was designed with the global international community very much in mind as they are often accepted onto our annual conference programme but are unable to obtain visas to come to the UK. Our virtual conference solves this problem, and will bring scholars from all corners of the world together to share their research. We welcome all members and non-members so please make a submission when the call comes out in April 2026.

2026 calendar of events:  This is taking shape! Our working groups and PGN network are busy planning. You can see upcoming events on our events page.

#BISA2026 in Brighton

We are tremendously excited to be going to Brighton from 3-5 June, and we look forward to seeing many of you there.  Conference Chair, Professor Simon Rushton, the BISA team and the Universities of Sussex and Brighton conference teams are very busy planning and preparing a critically engaging and stimulating programme of panels, roundtables and special events.  The provisional programme and registration will be released later in January, and we anticipate over 370 panels and roundtables, a keynote by Professor Kim Hutchings, meet the editor events,  the annual BISA reception, and much more. It is a wonderful opportunity for you all to make new connections, reconnect with old friends and colleagues, share your research and learn about what others have been doing.

We will also be holding a full day of professional development workshops for undergraduate, postgraduate, early-career researchers and mid-career academics on Tuesday 2 June, and a PGN evening event for all students, early-career scholars and newcomers to the conference (also on 2 June).

Registration will open later in January 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.

Thank you

I know that many of you would like to join me in thanking the BISA Chair and trustees as well as the 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 any additional suggestions of how we can improve BISA to better serve our membership, 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 2026.

Juliet Dryden

Director and CEO