Publishing Manager, Nature Masterclasses

Springer Nature is a major force in scientific, scholarly, professional and educational publishing. By using its combined expertise, scale and the reach of our brands, the company aims to grow and innovate in order to better serve academic researchers, students, teachers, institutions, professionals and the wider public, by helping them discover more.

Research Solutions is a dynamic division within Springer Nature. Its mission is to create solutions for our research audience across the world in order to enhance careers, advance learning and create an environment where researchers can achieve recognition for their success and their achievements.

The Publishing Manager will be responsible for the content and strategy of the growing portfolio of Nature Masterclasses products (with a special focus on content for our live editor-led workshops and other parts of the wider portfolio, as required), supporting the Head of Publishing to achieve ambitious growth targets.

This is a great opportunity to help shape one of the leading products of the researcher training services suite and contribute to training thousands of researchers worldwide, while working closely with editors from leading scientific journals. Working predominantly on the flagship Nature Masterclasses products, but also across the other Researcher Training Solutions products, you will be responsible for maintaining the high quality and continual development of workshops and webinars for researchers around the world.

This role involves development of training materials based on a competent understanding of the scientific research process; as such a candidate with a science background (ideally a PhD) is required.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about the effective training of researchers and will have a thorough understanding of the research environment, with either some experience of delivering training to or teaching researchers, or of developing similar training products in online and face-to-face formats. They will have excellent content development, project management, team management and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

Product Strategy

• Support the Head of Publishing to develop business strategy by defining and preparing a roadmap for development of training services and new content
• Support the Head of Publishing to develop a blended learning approach for the three types of Nature Masterclass (on-demand, editor-led and expert-trainer-led)
• Work independently to identify and drive forward specific projects that align with the goals and strategies of the Researcher Training Solutions team
• Offer insight and suggestions to support the Head of Publishing in optimising and streamlining systems and processes within the publishing team to ensure efficiency and rigour

Quality & customer satisfaction

• Establishing workflow processes to ensure continuous improvement and QA of the Editor-led training materials
• Ensuring that the quality of the Nature Masterclasses brand is maintained across all training materials as the product grows
• Leading the maintenance and development of content for Nature Masterclasses editor-led in line with best practice
• Consulting and working with other training services and products as required, in particular Nature Masterclasses trainer-led and Nature Masterclasses on-demand
• Support the Head of Publishing in identifying and driving forward continual improvements to content output to maintain quality and customer satisfaction in keeping with the identity of our prestigious brands
• Ensure the training is engaging and continues to meet the diverse and changing needs of today’s researchers and customers
• Leading the testing and implementation of new products and services as required

Delivery

• Supervising the content of in-person training workshops and webinars delivered by Nature Portfolio editors
• Working with the Instructional Designer to ensure training materials meet agreed learning objectives, content standards and quality
• Monitoring and reporting on established KPIs for products and services

People

• Line manage the Associate Publishing Manager role and offer insight and suggestions to support the Head of Publishing in making improvements to team structure and cohesion
• Support the professional development of the Associate Publishing Manager and support the Head of Publishing in ensuring that the team’s skills are aligned with the needs of the researcher training solutions department
• Where required, support the Head of Publishing with training new staff to the necessary standards
• Support the development and implementation of diversity, equity, inclusion & accessibility measures for the publishing team’s contribution to the training team portfolio.

Sales & marketing

• Pro-actively build relationships with key colleagues in sales and marketing teams
• Work with marketing team to create promotional product collateral
• Act as point of first reference for all content-related enquiries, including contact with clients as and when required.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications

Experience

• Experience working within higher education, scientific research, scientific or educational/academic publishing, science communication and/or educational/training product development
• Strong project management experience: running projects, controlling costs and hitting deadlines
• Some prior experience in publishing and product development
• Some experience of line management (desirable, but not required)
• Experience in, or demonstrable understanding of, education and training techniques (desirable, but not required)

Skills

• A passion for editorial excellence and superb attention to detail
• The ability to quickly understand key concepts in academic papers on a wide range of topics
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• The confidence to deliver clear presentations and to lead meetings with peers
• A passion for excellence in scientific research
• Ability to work to tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• A good understanding of the Springer Nature Brands (desirable, but not required)
• The confidence and ability to lead projects, influence stakeholders and chair meetings comprising colleagues at all levels Numeracy and comfort creating and working with usage data analyses (desirable, but not required)
• Credibility with regard to researcher training and editorial teams (desirable, but not required)
• Significant experience in, or demonstrable understanding of, the research environment and the needs of researchers and institutions as key customers (desirable, but not required)
• Thorough understanding of the scientific process as it pertains to STM publishing An understanding of the language needs of non-native English speakers (desirable, but not required)\

Qualifications

• Postgraduate degree in the natural sciences