Coaching early-career social sciences researchers to publish their first indexed publications: the Research Coach in Social Sciences program as a model

In this short essay, I describe how our Vietnam-based continuing education program, Research Coach in Social Sciences (RCISS), supports early-career researchers to (co)publish their first international indexed publications (i.e., publications in Clarivate Web of Science [WoS] or Scopus-indexed journals). In developed countries, junior researchers often seek help from university professors to publish their first publication. However, given the chronic shortage of senior social sciences scholars with international publishing experience in Vietnam, along with outdated and ill-designed PhD programs, early-career researchers in the social sciences in Vietnam often face challenges in international publishing. In February 2017, the RCISS program was founded by the author of this paper, a foreigntrained returnee, based in Hanoi, Vietnam. By the time that this paper is being written (June 2020), the RCISS program has provided coaching services for 200 junior social researchers, of whom 28 have published at least one article or book chapter indexed by Clarivate WoS or Scopus. In the following sections, I describe the context of social sciences research in Vietnam, as well as the overarching concepts and operational model of the RCISS program. Subsequently, I present some examples, which reflect three successful models that the RCISS program has adopted in order to support the coachees to publish their first international publication. The paper ends with a conclusion, which provides implications and suggestions.