The British Educational Research Journal (BERJ) is pleased to launch its Early Career Reviewer Scheme that aims to build early career researchers’ capacities in academic peer reviewing. This scheme reflects the journal’s commitment to inclusion, equity and justice in academic publishing. We will pair an early career researcher with a more experienced one and invite both to jointly review papers submitted to BERJ. For early career reviewers, they will be the main reviewer for the allocated paper, providing a detailed review report on the quality and suitability of the paper for publication; for experienced reviewers acting as mentors, they do not necessarily need to submit a full report as would normally be required. Instead, experienced reviewers will support their mentees by offering constructive feedback as part of the peer review process (via email conversations or online meetings as appropriate). This will include commenting on the final version of the review report drafted by the early career reviewer prior to submission.

This scheme seeks to provide early career reviewers with training on peer reviewing skills, increase their participation in academic peer reviewing and, with mentorship, promote their engagement not only with BERJ, but also the wider educational research community.

Due to high-level interest from early career reviewers, we are running a call for mentors so that more early career reviewers can be admitted to the scheme.

We welcome expressions of interest from experienced reviewers who are willing to support early career researchers in developing their peer reviewing skills. Please send your CV (no more than two pages) to publications@bera.ac.uk if you are willing to offer your support to this scheme. Thank you!

Person specification

Mentors should:

• have published articles in relevant academic journals (preferably in BERJ)
• have experience of reviewing submissions for relevant academic journals (ideally including BERJ)
• ideally have experience of mentoring or supporting academic colleagues or postgraduate students.

Mentors do not need to be UK-based academics and can be from any international institution.

The scheme will last for one year (with no more than three review invitations per mentee-mentor dyad). Upon completion, the mentors will receive the following recognition and benefits:

• name published in BERJ as a mentor
• a certificate of participation from BERJ.