BDU’s Journal of Law Chief Editor attends Cairo Symposium

A lecturer at the Law School and editor in chief of Bahir Dar University Journal of law, Mr. Haile Gush, has participated a symposium on building a research writing culture at Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

  

The symposium, funded by the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE), was hosted by Dr. Rasha Kamal and Dr. Ashour Amry at Ain Shams University and facilitated by Professor Anna Robinson-Pant and Dr. Anna Magyar from the University of East Anglia, UK. The event consisted partly of a presentation about research and publishing and partly of experiential and interactive activities where:

  • Participants brought their journals from their own institution/country as a basis for a critical discussion about journal review criteria and journal identity.
  • Strategies for developing research writing capacity with doctoral students and junior academics were discussed.
  • Tools and techniques for facilitating discussions and giving and receiving peer feedback are also reviewed.

The initial impetus for the programme is to address inequalities in academic publishing and participation through increasing individual participation and contribution of writers from under-represented countries in the Global South. Some of the ideas taken by the participants of this symposium are supporting young researchers, setting up a writers’ group; using the feedback frameworks presented at the symposium, organizing a research forum to provide feedback to young researchers; using guidelines for writers and reviewers; organizing workshops with local journal editors and reviewers.

Senior scholars from social science departments in higher education institutions within Egypt and the region have participated. The symposium was an opportunity for participants to develop a network of resources, ideas and support to build the culture of academic writing and publishing in their institution.

The programme has been run in Addis Ababa (2014), Mumbai (2015), Quezon City (2016), Kathmandu (2017) and this year in Egypt.