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Community and Outreach Manager

Employer
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Location
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire or remote
Salary
£32,500-£37,000
Closing date
29 Jan 2021

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Sciety is a platform for research communication where new research results in biology, medicine and other sciences are made available for peer review and curation by different expert communities. It is built and operated by a small team at eLife Sciences Publications Limited.

Communities of discipline experts, academic societies, journal editors, early-career reviewers, or institution- and department-level teams can share expert reviews of new findings and help readers to navigate the expanding volume of literature made openly available every day. We have communities like eLife, PREReview, Review Commons and Peer Community as examples of those already on board.

We are now seeking a Community and Outreach Manager to help us change behaviour in scholarly communication to make it more open, diverse and trustworthy. We want to grow the usage and influence of the platform by talking to new communities, helping existing communities and finding groups of readers and authors to use it.

Our Team

You’ll join a small and enthusiastic cross-functional team who are passionate about continuous improvement and building tools to enable positive change. Everyone gets involved in all aspects of the platform, with our group of eight staff regularly discussing the next software feature to experiment with, based on user feedback. You’ll represent the needs of communities in those conversations and choose the metrics we use to measure engagement. You’ll also assist our Product Manager and the rest of the team in promoting the platform to potential users through a variety of channels.

The distributed team works remotely in a very sociable way. Most of the software development takes place on a single video call with others joining occasionally to provide input and join the conversation. We also have a regular “campfire” session where we learn about each other and share team folklore to improve our shared understanding of what we’re building and how. The team constantly adapts to meet the needs of its members: we meet briefly at the beginning and end of every day, always looking to make improvements to our process and practices. We also have a number of ways to reserve time for self-directed and team-based learning.

About You

You care about building a strong sense of community around a product and know how technology can enhance the lives of people that use it. You know that getting the best out of a system comes from strong collaboration with the people using it, both on the user side and within your team. You enjoy working with diverse communities that want to try new things, and have spent time building new communities through social media and marketing. Engaging in discussions to attract like-minded evangelists to your product and uniting them around a common cause is something that excites you.

You’ll succeed in this role if you’re self-motivated, flexible, responsive, and willing to take on a variety of tasks. In addition you’ll have:

  • Some experience in community outreach and management
  • Strong relationship-management skills
  • Excellent spoken and written communication skills

Your Responsibilities

This role will allow you to exercise and develop your expertise in community-building and marketing through:

  • Identifying and recruiting communities of expert peer-reviewers to the platform
  • Listening to communities, serving as their primary contact point and providing support so that we can make their use of Sciety a success
  • Increasing awareness of and readership for Sciety and the content we have
  • Liaising with communities to facilitate smooth on-boarding and integration with their existing services
  • Representing Sciety at events and meetings

About Our Offer

Sciety is operated by a team within eLife who are a well-supported, not-for-profit, mission-driven organisation. It’s important to us that you thrive as a person, not just at your job. We invest in the wellbeing of our staff and promote a culture where feedback and ideas are welcome from across the company, so you’ll get the chance to really make a difference.

The post is a permanent position, 37.5 hours per week, and offers a competitive basic annual salary in the range of £32,500-£37,000 (depending on experience). Applicants must be able to demonstrate the right to live and work in the UK to be considered for the vacancy. We also offer:

  • A flexible approach to working hours and remote working
  • 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays, increasing on service up to 30 days
  • 4 days per year dedicated to your personal development
  • Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
  • Company pension scheme

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. We are committed to increasing the diversity of our workplace and we actively encourage applications from groups that are underrepresented throughout the industry.

To apply

Please send your CV and a covering letter explaining your enthusiasm for this position and why you are a great person for this role to hr@elifesciences.org. Informal enquiries are very welcome; please contact Paul Shannon, Head of Technology, via p.shannon@elifesciences.org.

The closing date for applications is Friday, 29th January, 2021 at 5pm GMT. Interviews will be arranged remotely via Google Meet or Zoom video-call. Candidates invited for an interview will be contacted by Friday, 5th February, 2021.

Reference ID: SCOM/2020-12

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