Scientific Editor at Brain Communications

Contract: 2 years Fixed-term 

Working pattern: Full time (38.5 hours/week)

Job Description

Brain Communications, one of the two journals of the Guarantors of Brain, is an open-access, international, editorially independent, peer-reviewed journal. We publish high-quality preclinical and clinical studies related to neurological or psychiatric disease or maintaining brain/nervous system health and resilience.  

The Role

Brain Communications is seeking an outstanding Scientific Editor to play a central role in the journal’s editorial management. Reporting to the Senior Scientific Editor, Dr Manuela Marescotti and working closely with the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors (AEs), the Scientific Editor will ensure the efficient, rigorous, and timely handling of manuscripts while maintaining the highest standards of scientific quality, integrity, and author service.

The post-holder will coordinate the activity of an editorial team comprising PhD students and postdoctoral Editorial Fellows, who provide scientific evaluations and support the editorial process by inviting reviewers. The Scientific Editor will contribute to their recruitment, training, mentoring, workload allocation, and quality assurance.

The post-holder will support the Editor-in-Chief and, to a lesser extent, the AEs in their day-to-day paper handling activities.

The Scientific Editor will also support the Senior Scientific Editor and the Editor-in-Chief in coordinating special collections, managing journal communications through social media and at conferences, and running outreach programmes training early-career researchers in academic publishing.

Responsibilities

• Perform scientific checks on manuscripts to ensure they comply with journal policies for presentation of scientific data/rigour (50%)
• Support the Senior Scientific Editor and the Editor-in-Chief (currently David Belin) to keep track of manuscripts, email correspondence, and flag delays in manuscript handling (20%).
• Support the AEs’ activity and the Editor-in-Chief (10%).

Liaise with Associate Editors and guest editors in commissioning papers and reviews and coordinating special issues on timely subjects (5%).

• Support the organisation of Editorial Board meetings and other relevant meetings (2%).
• Support the Journal’s strategy contributing to social media posts and helping promote the journal and its mission at in-person events and online (6%).
• Contribute to outreach programmes to train early-career researchers in the process of publishing neuroscience articles (7%).
• The post holder will independently plan and manage their workload, ensuring high-quality and timely delivery of services and projects at Brain Communications. They will use initiative to resolve day-to-day issues, respond flexibly to emerging pressures, monitor manuscripts under consideration, and maintain awareness of current priorities and future journal plans.
• The post holder will meet regular deadlines and prioritise their workload as necessary; they will be expected to deal with most problems, such as dealing with disgruntled authors, standing in for editorial board members in inviting reviewers when they are tardy, and any problems arising in the programmes led by the post holder.

Reporting to the Senior Scientific Editor of Brain Communications. Key contacts will be the editorial team, editorial board members, and the Guarantors of Brain.

You will have

Essential

• Education to a higher level required (PhD in Neuroscience or related discipline or equivalent).
• Experience with multiple forms of statistical analysis.
• Experience running programmes of work involving multiple stakeholders.
• Excellent administrative-related IT skills.
• Effective written communication skills, effective social media skills, ability to work to deadlines, and the ability to work well in a team.
• Ability to produce a publication-ready manuscript.

Desirable

• Extensive training with Scholar One software or equivalent.
• Experience with scientific publishing.
• Established track record of peer-review/review.

To apply, please click the 'Apply' button above.

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