Haven’t had a chance to finalise that draft paper sitting on your desktop?

The 12 Weeks to Publication program will help you reach your publishing goals – in just 12 weeks!

Join us to find out how the program works, and how it would help you get that draft article published to a Top 25% journal in your field of research.

Ahead of the full-program beginning in May, this ‘teaser’ session highlights how the program will support you to elevate the quality of your articles for publication in high-ranking journals.

This is useful for those interested in participating in the full program consisting of 12 weekly sessions, where you would revise and finalise your draft article for submission to a Top 25% journal in your field. This session, as well as the full program, is open to participation from early-career researchers and HDR students from across UTS.

In this session, you will hear from Professor Debra Anderson, Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Health, about how the program works and what you need to participate. Program co-founder and previous facilitator, Associate Professor Nikki Percival, will tell you about the benefits of the program and how it supports early-career researchers to rise to the challenge publishing in high-ranking journals. Dr Deborah Sims, previous program facilitator and program alumni, will provide you with a more in-depth overview of the content covered in each of the 12 weeks.

The full program is adapted from Wendy Laura Belcher’s best-selling Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. It clarifies the publication process over 12 weeks to assist you in overcoming unease about academic publishing, and shares strategies for achieving success in the academic writing arena.

The Faculty of Health has facilitated this program since 2017 which gives Early-Career Researchers and HDR students practical experience with writing and publishing. Previous participants (including from Health, Science, Law, Business, FTDI and FEIT) have found the program beneficial as it has enabled improvements in writing skills, increased their writing productivity and helped them identify where and how to publish in top quality journals. To date, the Faculty of Health has facilitated 8 rounds with over 70 articles submitted to Top 25% journals in participant’s respective fields.

If you’re looking to publish that paper which has been left on the backburner, register for this session to find out more about the full program! Registrations for the full program will open in April 2021.

About the facilitators

Professor Debra Anderson joined the University of Technology Sydney as the Associate Dean Research in late 2019, and sponsored the 12 Weeks to Publication program offered online through RES Hub in 2020. She has a PhD in Social and Preventive Medicine and over thirty years’ experience in education and research, with a significant program of published and funded research in Women’s Health. She is Director and Founder of the Women’s Wellness Research Program. Professor Anderson has a distinguished international reputation as a scholar and leader in the field of women's health research and is a collaborator on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health.

Associate Professor Nikki Percival (PhD; MPH, BSc) is a co-founder of the 12 Weeks to Publication Program. She is passionate and deeply committed to promoting health, strengthening health systems and achieving Indigenous health equality. Nikki leads and contributes to multi-method research at state-, national- and international-levels to improve equitable access to, and delivery of best practice health promotion and preventive health care for First Nations peoples. For over a decade, she has worked alongside Indigenous primary health care services to establish a pioneering research program; advancing scholarship in the application of quality improvement approaches in Indigenous health promotion. She is an Editor for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, an Editorial Advisory Board member for the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, and review editor for Frontiers Public Health (Public Health Policy).

Dr Deborah Sims is a 12 Weeks to Publication program alumni who facilitated the program from 2019-2020 whilst completing her PhD in Nursing with the Faculty of Health. She has clinical experience and research expertise in early parenting support and perinatal mental health. Deborah is a nurse, midwife, childbirth educator, and child and family health nurse at Sydney Adventist Hospital and Women’s Health Road Clinic. She is the CEO of Raven Institute of Research, specializing in healthcare research for women in disadvantaged populations. Deborah, an Honorary Clinical Fellow at University Technology Sydney, teaches Evidence to Practice and Academic Writing for the Faculty of Health at and has published five peer-reviewed journal articles. Deborah is the President of the Australasian Marce Society and the Secretary of the International Marce Society.