Rising Scholars: Sprinting with INASP

Although we're closing on May 1st, WAO has just got time to squeeze one more project. It's with INASP, an international development organization with over 30 years’ experience of working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

One of the initiatives INASP coordinates is Rising Scholars, a free online programme offering mentoring and collaboration, online courses and resources to early career researchers. Over 14,000 community members from 175 countries come together in a collaborative space for researchers, practitioners and professionals to connect around research projects, ideas and funding opportunities.

We're helping INASP reimagine the Rising Scholars web presence, as part of some wider digital strategy work we started with them last December.

Over the next couple of months, we'll interrogate at the user experience (UX) of Rising Scholars and figure out the features needed to help this community thrive. We want to make it easier for learners and partners to understand the overall offer of Rising Scholars, as it's currently difficult to see the vibrant community from public‑facing sites. We also want to set a strong foundation for future INASP initiatives.

To do so, we need to talk to people and discover their needs and behaviours.

We’re kicking off the project with user research to help us understand what Rising Scholars need and want from a new platform. We'll be searching for a big, bold vision for the future of the digital presence for the Rising Scholars community.

Although some user needs have already been uncovered, the integration between Rising Scholars and other INASP learning offerings and processes is an opportunity to make decisions that help Rising Scholars make better connections.

Given INASP’s context, we will need to think about choosing tools and strategies that work reliably in low‑bandwidth contexts where partners and users often operate.

As ever, we’re excited to work on this project in the open and are pleased to be working with an organisation that is supporting researchers, learners and partners in the Global South.