Workshop on the Academic Publishing Process

Sarah Dickin, Center for Health and Sustainability, Uppsala University, visited the Uppsala School for Africa Studies on Feb 9th, 2026 and provided guidance on how to get academic texts published. The workshop was held in English on Zoom and participants from Zimbabwe in the south to Oslo in the north attended.

Sarah discussed how to get your work published in an academic context – how to identify a high-quality journal and interpret the focus, how to adapt an article to target a journal, how to handle rejections and revisions, and issues of co-authorship.

Questions raised by the group largely concerned how to choose a journal to submit your text to, how to evaluate journal rankings, thinking about open access and acceptance levels and the tensions between them.

Comments from participants after the workshop showed that they need information about the publishing process and that the workshop was appreciated, "content-rich" and "interesting".

We are grateful that Sarah shared her knowledge with us!

Sarah Dickin is Associate Professor at the Centre for Health and Sustainability, Uppsala University, Sweden located at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health. Dr. Dickin holds a PhD in health geography and B.Sc. in Earth and Environmental science from McMaster University, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research is situated at the intersection of global water, health and equity challenges, with an emphasis on generating policy and practitioner-relevant evidence in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector. She is actively involved with a number of global WASH networks working to achieve SDG 6 on water and sanitation including serving on the advisory board of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance. She has published widely in academic formats across several disciplines (e.g. geography, global health, sustainability science) as well in a range of policy-relevant formats (e.g. briefs and reports).