Managing Editor (Journals)

Founded in 1922, the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) is the UK based and internationally recognised qualifying body and learned society for chemical, biochemical and process engineers. We exist to advance chemical engineering’s contribution for the benefit of society.

Chemical and process engineers are uniquely placed to contribute to the delivery of a sustainable future for us all. The world's ambition to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needs chemical engineers. Leading the practical application of new and emerging technologies, chemical engineers play a vital role in addressing the energy transition towards a net zero future, the need for sustainable food and water supplies, and the provision of global healthcare solutions.

Position:

The Managing Editor (Journals) leads the development of IChemE’s portfolio of journals, which includes ambitious plans to identify new opportunities to expand the portfolio with new launches. They will drive forward the reach, impact, visibility and effectiveness of IChemE’s wholly-owned academic peer-reviewed journals, ensuring they remain at the cutting edge of chemical engineering research and have global impact in the chemical engineering community. The role holder also liaises with staff at the Royal Society of Chemistry to achieve the same with our jointly published journal.

A key responsibility of this role is spearheading innovative product development to expand IChemE's profitable portfolio of journals. The post holder will conduct market research and horizon scanning to identify emerging niches and opportunities, developing proposals for new journals to be considered by IChemE and its publishing partner, Elsevier.

Collaborating with the publishing partner, the Managing Editor (Journals) will drive the success of recently-launched journals by ensuring they have a technically leading editorial board that attracts strong submissions, in order to ensure the journals are recognised as world-leading in their respective fields. They will engage in appropriate activities to ensure these new journals thrive, aligning with key performance indicators (KPIs).

The Managing Editor will also ensure the existing portfolio of journals remains impactful, relevant, and appealing. This involves driving forward the journals’ quality, relevance, reputation, and influence. The role requires a forward-thinking individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment. They need to stay abreast of trends and developments in publishing, chemical engineering research, volunteer management, and other relevant areas to enable them to sharpen and dynamically adjust the aims and scope of the journals to ensure that they at all times cover the breadth of relevant topics for chemical engineers.

Working with our publishing partners and the Director, Learned Society, the Managing Editor (Journals) will assess and mitigate the risks the ongoing shift towards open access publishing entails. They will ensure that IChemE’s journals portfolio offers publishing opportunities for those wishing to publish in traditional subscription-based journals as well as open access, while safeguarding the income derived by the Institution.

The success of IChemE’s journals hinges on the dedication and professionalism of the editor-in-chief and editorial board members, who work on a voluntary basis. The Managing Editor will be the primary contact and support for these volunteers, ensuring an excellent volunteer experience while maintaining the quality and impact of the journals.

The Managing Editor will develop two Editorial Assistants who support the day-to-day running of the journals and deputize for the Managing Editor as needed. They also need to maintain close working engagement with production, editorial, and marketing staff at Elsevier, IChemE’s main publishing partner, which is crucial for the smooth running of the journals.

Additionally, the Managing Editor will take charge of IChemE publication medals. They will be invited to review the current medals and recommend changes to the process to ensure efficiency and impact.

The role involves working as part of a small internal team and a large extended external team. Daily communication with key stakeholders, including external publishing staff, journal editors, authors, and reviewers, is essential for the success of the journals.

Beyond the listed duties and responsibilities, the employee may be required to perform other tasks assigned by their line manager from time to time.

As IChemE is an international membership organization, activities often take place outside of normal working hours. The job holder must be willing to attend and participate in such activities and associated travel. Additionally, the job holder will need to liaise with colleagues in different time zones on an ad hoc basis to meet business needs.

Requirements:

Peer-reviewed journals development

• Monitoring publishing trends to identify opportunities for new journals
• Developing detailed proposals for potential new journals
• Supporting recently-launched journals by forming a strong editorial board, proposing and managing special issues, and helping with promotional activities
• Ongoing development of editorial boards – recruiting and retiring editors in consultation with the journals’ Editors-in-Chief
• Development of topics covered by the journals
• Monitoring of relevant conferences taking place to identify possible partnership opportunities for publication of special issues and raising awareness of journal
• Development of journal procedures and targets designed to realise strategic direction
• Organisation and running of editorial board meetings
• Liaise with Elsevier on journals development matters
• Liaise with Elsevier on implementation of new systems and procedures
• Identify promotional opportunities
• Establish journal presence on social media through creation and supply of news for various platforms as appropriate
• Monitoring competition
• Attend relevant international conferences and meetings to keep abreast of developments in academic publishing, chemical engineering, and network with members of the editorial boards & wider academic community

Peer-reviewed journals day-to-day running

• Development of editorial boards – recruiting and retiring editors in consultation with the journals’ Editors-in-Chief
• Line management of Editorial Assistant
• Liaise with authors, reviews and editors throughout the peer review process
• Identify and coordinate implementation of promotional opportunities, to include liaising with conferences, promotion of special issues and other specific project activity such as editor interviews
• Liaise with Elsevier on journals editorial, production and marketing matters
• Liaise with other IChemE staff in other departments to support the journals to include Marketing and Communications, The Chemical Engineer, and Commercial.
• Attend relevant international conferences and meetings to keep abreast of developments in academic publishing, chemical engineering, and network with members of the editorial boards & wider academic community
• Ownership and day-to-day running responsibility for social media accounts that promote journal activity and serve to build a community amongst authors, editors and readers
• Ownership and day-to-day running responsibility for individual journal SharePoint sites to document journal activity and support editorial board members
• Adhere to and advise on publishing ethics
• Provide guidance and support for members of the editorial team
• Meet with editors in person and online on a regular basis including organization and running of annual board meetings
• Identify topics and conferences for special issues
• Organise special topic issues to include topic identification, editor management, content tracking, completion and promotion
• Ensure timely publication of journals according to the agreed publication schedule
• Provide information and updates for the journals websites managed by Elsevier
• Support editorial activities led by the RSC for MSDE
• Ensure relevant procedural documentation for editors is maintained by the Editorial Assistant.
• Responsibility for journals related aspects of the Quality Management System – to include setting of appropriate KPI targets and measures, analyzing and reporting on KPI outcomes, participation in quarterly operational management meetings, producing and maintaining process flows and guideline documents for the management system, feedback and non-conformity reporting, risk management monitoring and audit participation.
• Manage all manuscripts submitted to IChemE’s journals through peer review using EM (Editorial Manager) when the Editorial Assistant is unavailable.
• Assign papers to the appropriate editor when the Editorial Assistant is unavailable.

Publications Medals

• Manages judging committees through notification of tasks and recruiting and retiring members
• Co-ordinates assessment of nominations by the committee
• Compiles committee members’ scores
• Organise meetings as appropriate
• Prepares committees recommendations for the Medals and Prizes Committee

Key Responsibilities, Impacts And Performance Indicators

• Manage editorial boards to ensure article review times remain competitive relative to competitors (current target: no more than 2 weeks longer vs benchmark journals with paid editors)
• Maintain and improve position in Impact Factor / CiteScore tables vs competitor journals (current target: Percentage improvement to be greater than one or more direct competitors)
• Achieve annual income in line with budget

Line Management

The postholder has line management responsibility for one or more Editorial Assistants who handle the routine administration of the journals.

In addition to duties and responsibilities listed above, the employee may be required to perform other duties assigned by their line manager from time to time.

IChemE is an international membership organisation and activities often take place outside of normal working hours. The job holder must be willing to attend and participate in such activities and associated travel. Additionally, the job holder will be required to liaise with colleagues located in different time zones on an ad hoc basis to meet the needs of the business.

Budget accountability

This role has no budget responsibility.

Person Specification:

We expect all staff to demonstrate behaviours in the workplace and support our values which are:

• Trusted
• Collaborative
• Agile
• Innovative
• Impactful

Education / Qualifications:

Essential

• Management qualification
• Educated to degree level

Desirable

• Relevant Professional qualification
• Science / engineering degree or experience

Knowledge and experience:

Essential

• At least 5 years’ experience working in an academic publishing environment
• Experience of working with volunteers, Trustees and being an active member of working groups
• Extensive knowledge of the peer-review process
• Working experience of peer-review software
• Experience of working with and influencing / managing volunteers, and a wide variety of people at all levels
• Up-to-date knowledge of the publishing industry and good practice
• High level of IT literacy including common Microsoft Office applications
• Experience of on-line conferencing and web-meetings

Desirable

• Journals research and development skills
• Experience representing publications / publishers at meetings and conferences
• An understanding of the role of a professional membership organisation
• Appreciation of and ability to use social media platforms for network building and promotion

Specific skills and personal attributes:

• Ability to keep up-to-date with latest developments in publishing and use this to drive continuous improvement.
• Ability to work successfully individually and as part of a team
• Ability to lead a team of volunteers
• Ability to manage support staff (Editorial Assistant)
• Ability to represent the reputation of the journals and IChemE at international conferences
• Self-starter, self-motivated, proactive, highly responsive with a positive can-do attitude
• Can deal with a number of issues at the same time, is level-headed and copes under pressure

Other information:

This position can be based either at our Rugby (CV21 3HQ) or London Office (SW1P 1PR) depending on location of successful candidate. We are currently working to a minimum of three days from the Rugby/London office and the remainder working from your UK home location. There will be times when you may be required to attend the workplace on remote working days as and when IChemE requires. Should this happen we will give you reasonable notice.

Only candidates eligible to work in the UK will be considered.

This is a permanent full-time role based on 37.5 hours per week working Monday through to Friday (core hours from 10:00-12:00 and 14:30-16:00). Flexibility will be required to meet business needs.

The closing date for all applications is Sunday 19 January 2025 at midnight. IChemE reserves the right to interview exceptional candidates and make an offer of employment before this date should we wish.

Salary £36,000- £40,000 depending on experience.

IChemE benefits of employment include:

• Annual performance reviews
• Training and development opportunities
• Company contributory pension scheme that matches employee contributions by 1.5 times up to a maximum capped 12% employer contribution
• Life assurance linked to being an active member of the pension scheme
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) for full time members of staff
• Company paid sickness leave after 6 months employment and increased at intervals based on length of service
• Employee Assistance Programme and wellbeing support
• Health cash plan (cash back on optical, dental, physio and more)
• Financial support to help cover the cost of professional membership subscriptions if relevant to your role
• Free parking and refreshments at our Rugby Office