As many of you may know, October 10 is celebrated as World Mental Health Day. Last year, we published a series of articles on mental health around this time and launched a survey to understand the status of mental health support in Indian Institutes. This year, we have a set of webinars as well as a new series of articles planned around the theme of mental health, to be published in September and October.
We are looking forward to your participation and help in raising more awareness about this often-stigmatized issue. We are currently inviting pitches for stories based around the intersection of mental health with Indian academia. We are looking for stories that are solution-focused or that shed light on aspects of the situation that may not be talked about often. As an example, some suggested topics are -
- Academic evaluation criteria, e.g. the pressure to publish, and their effect on mental health
- Intersectionality - regarding the intersection of gender, caste, class etc. with the risk of mental health disorders within Indian academia
- Existence of substance abuse issues within the academic population
- Mental health situation in scientific professions other than academic research (e.g. industry, education, science administration or journalism)
Note that you don’t have to restrict yourself to the above Please use this Google form to pitch your idea . If the form doesn’t work for any reason, you are also welcome to write to editor@indiabioscience.org or shreya@indiabioscience.org with the phrase “Pitch-Mental Health” in the subject line.
Please do not send drafts unless your pitch is approved by the editor first; it can lead to wasted effort in case the story is not suitable for our website.
Please feel free to forward this message to any other freelance writers or colleagues in academia you know who may be interested in writing for us.