At a Glance
- Tasks: Shape OxSci's certification process and build a network of expert reviewers.
- Company: Join a pioneering team at OxSci, redefining research quality in science.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and a direct line to the founder.
- Other info: Help define the future of research quality with AI and expert judgment.
- Why this job: Be a founding member and make a real impact on academic publishing.
- Qualifications: Experience in scholarly publishing and a passion for innovation.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
About Us
Science runs on trust, but the machinery meant to produce that trust is failing. Peer review is slow, opaque, inconsistent, and increasingly gamed. And a flood of AI-generated research is about to overwhelm a system that was already straining. No one is the credible, independent arbiter of research quality. We think there should be one. OxSci is building a credit rating agency for science: a certification layer that combines AI with expert peer review, so researchers, institutions, and AI developers can assess research quality quickly and at scale. We're early, focused, and well-resourced. The standards we set now (what "quality" even means, and how expert judgment and AI combine to produce a defensible rating) will define the company.
About the founder
OxSci was founded by Shumiao Ouyang, Associate Professor of Finance at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Fellow in Management at Wadham College. His research spans fintech, digital payments, and AI; he holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton and degrees from Peking and Tsinghua Universities. He started OxSci out of a conviction that the systems for judging scientific quality are overdue for reinvention, and you'd be building it with him directly.
The role
We're looking for a founding editorial mind to shape how OxSci's certification works, and to earn the academic community's trust in it. The quality judgments themselves rest with the expert peers who review; AI is there to make their work faster and sharper, not to replace it. Your leverage is research taste and a deep read of the academic ecosystem.
- Build and curate the network of expert reviewers: knowing who the right people are, bringing them in, and earning their trust.
- Shape and continually improve how reviews happen, including how AI supports reviewers rather than overriding their judgment.
- Bring research taste and ecosystem fluency to guide where the standard and the product should go, spotting what's not working and pushing the corresponding changes.
- Represent OxSci to journals, institutions, and researchers, and be a credible voice on research quality.
- Work side by side with the founder and a small technical team to turn all of this into a product, and to shape what the company becomes.
This is a founding role, not a defined box. Much of the work isn't written yet; you'll help write it.
Who you are
You know the academic publishing world from the inside, and you want to fix it, not administer it. The strongest fit has spent time on the professional side of scholarly publishing: a journal editor, a Publisher or portfolio lead at a major house, a research-integrity or peer-review-innovation role, or an early or founding seat at a next-generation publishing or metascience venture. Many of the best people we'll meet are researchers who crossed over from the bench, or operators who've already tried to fix peer review from inside the system. Top-publisher experience is a plus, not a gate.
What we actually care about:
- Research taste and ecosystem fluency. You can tell strong work from weak, editors and academics take you seriously, and you understand how the machinery of publishing really runs.
- You’re a builder. You’ve shipped something new (launched a journal, built a tool, run a pilot, started something), not only managed what already existed.
- A point of view on what’s broken, and you’ve probably said so in public: a talk, an essay, a thread.
- You see AI as leverage, not threat, and you’re excited to define how it and human judgment combine.
- The mission is what pulls you. You’d want to work on this problem before the details were even worked out.
Strong written and spoken English is essential.
What we offer
A founding seat with meaningful equity, a direct line to the founder, and the rare chance to define a standard the field doesn't yet have. Editorial and publishing work is chronically underpaid; this role isn't. Pay is genuinely competitive, and compensation and equity are discussed openly and structured for a founding-stage role.
How to apply
Skip the cover letter. Send us a few paragraphs (one page max) answering: What is the single most broken thing about how research quality is judged today, and if you were building the standard from scratch, what would you do differently? Email it with your CV to recruit.uk@oxsci.ai. We read every one, and a sharp answer gets a fast reply.
Founding Editorial Lead employer: OxSci
OxSci is an exceptional employer for those passionate about transforming the academic publishing landscape. With a founding role that offers meaningful equity and a direct line to the founder, employees are empowered to shape the future of research quality alongside a small, dedicated team in a hybrid setting in London or Oxford. The company fosters a culture of innovation and collaboration, providing competitive compensation and unique opportunities for personal and professional growth in a mission-driven environment.
