Editorial Assistant, Journals

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has two fantastic opportunities for an Editorial Assistant - Journals to join our Publishing team on a full-time permanent and a part-time (17.5 hours per week) temporary basis (12-months). At the RSC we embrace flexibility and offer hybrid working, which means our teams come together when they need to collaborate. Although this role is contractually based at our Cambridge office, you will be able to work from home within the UK, with the expectation that you will attend the office as needed for your role. In this role it is expected that you will attend the office on an ad-hoc basis. If you need flexible working arrangements, please outline this in your application.

About The Royal Society Of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to advance the chemical sciences. As a not-for-profit publisher, we reinvest surplus funds back into the global scientific community, supporting our purpose to help the chemical science community make the world a better place.

The RSC strives to continuously innovate its products and services to adapt to market and customer needs, maintain relevancy and diversify revenues from print journals. This requires a market-led and ‘outside-in’ thinking approach to product and service innovation.

About The Role

This is a critical support role, providing administrative support to an Executive Editor/Managing Editor and their team with a range of commissioning and promotional activities.

Your responsibilities will focus on

• Retrieving data from databases, sending electronic mailings via Maxemail, carrying out times to publication and competitor analyses and updating the journal blogs.
• Responding to general queries from potential authors, including in response to commissioning activities, by managing the shared journal mailboxes.
• Arranging Editorial Board meetings, including booking venues, arranging travel and accommodation for Editorial Board members. Maintaining and updating Editorial and Advisory Board lists.
• Providing administrative support for the Executive Editor/Managing Editor and their teams for external activities. This may include collating statistics, organising materials and prizes for conference exchange agreements and liaising with the travel team over travel arrangements.
• Liaising with external Editors over marketing and promotional activities, and providing general assistance with marketing activities.
• Arranging external Editor payments, and processing Editorial Board expenses.
• Providing cover for the other Editorial Assistant(s) when absent and assisting them with administrative duties, to ensure the smooth running of the journals department.
• Undertaking other reasonable duties and projects as required by the Executive Editor/Managing Editor and Publishers and their team(s) as appropriate.
• Ensuring that every effort is made to progress the RSC’s Publishing strategy for core and new product development, and technical innovation.

We are looking for

• Previous administration experience
• Efficiency and competence in the use of software packages associated with PCs
• Very good organisation and time-management skills, together with the ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines
• Good communications skills and proven ability to work effectively as part of a team
• Previous experience in Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) publishing is desirable.

At the RSC, we recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce and welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds to apply. We particularly encourage applications from disabled and ethnic minority candidates.

As a part of the Disability Confident Scheme, we endeavour, where possible, to offer an interview to candidates meeting the essential criteria of the role, who has a substantial physical/mental impairment which impacts their ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.

We are committed to making our recruitment processes accessible to all and as part of this, we are flexible in the ways we give and receive information. If you would like to apply using a different format, please contact the Recruitment Team at jobs@rsc.org or on +44 (0) 1223 432229 and we will do our best to put any reasonable adjustments in place.

If you are interested in this role, please apply before the end of the closing date. When applying, you will need to provide an up-to-date CV and a supporting statement (no more than 500 words) indicating how your skills/expertise match the competencies outlined in the Job Description.