We are an international network of social writing researchers, trainers and practitioners who seek to embed social writing methods into higher education and beyond.

The aim of the network is to build an agenda for furthering social writing practice by embedding writing in PhD, early and mid-career researcher development, academic work/study, and teaching and learning.

This is critical for current and future academic careers, plus in teaching and supervising future generations of researchers, as social writing can:

• facilitate ‘break-though’ writing progress by providing a protected and social space and time away from the usual workplace and other daily distractions
• support the development of academic writing skills and competencies, both through academics’ self-guided improvement of their own writing process and through structured inputs of workshop elements during social writing events with peers
• increase motivation for writing by building a profession network that serves as community of practice and peer support
• strengthen the professional identity of academics as writers, which helps embed good writing routines into daily work.

Purpose of the WRAP Network

• research, run and promote structured writing retreats (SWRs) as a form of academic development intervention
• facilitate the organisation and co-facilitation of SWRs and ‘taster’ retreats
• support mutual mentoring (‘tandem’) between facilitators for peer assessment/mutual learning
• share and exchange materials/worksheets/frameworks and approaches for workshop elements and tools for writer development during retreats
• explore and create research opportunities (e.g., coordinating retreats/groups for data collection purposes)
• discuss and promote the latest research on academic writing development and SWRs and identify barriers and enablers in engaging in these areas
• promote opportunities for writing retreats
• share insights on venues and programme elements for retreats
• implement robust evaluation of the network and its practices through qualitative and quantitative methods
• ensure sustainable growth through the access of relevant external funding resource
• demonstrate capacity-building as a process of developing and strengthening the skills for academic writing development and practice