Executive Editor

This role is to be filled by an employee working from a remote location within the UK. PLOS is a nonprofit organization on a mission to drive open science forward with measurable, meaningful change in research publishing, policy, and practice. We believe in a better future where science is open to all, for all.

Role Summary

Working closely with the journal’s external Editor-in-Chief, the Executive Editor takes ultimate responsibility for the editorial decision-making and content of the journal. Training and line-managing an in-house team of staff editors, ensuring smooth day-to-day operations, efficient manuscript processing, and a great experience for authors, peer-reviewers, editorial board members and statistical advisors. The Executive Editor has a key role in shaping and implementing the journal’s editorial strategy, and in external representation of PLOS Medicine, related PLOS journals, and PLOS as a whole.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Provides mentoring and consultation on journal process to editorial team members, including projects to improve submission quality and volume (e.g. special issues, editorial board outreach).
• Guided by a strong dedication to research integrity and author service, establishes and monitors performance benchmarks for the tasks handled by the editorial team, to ensure an efficient and timely handling of all submissions.
• Owns recruitment, training, development and retention of staff editors.

Responsibilities

• Key liaison for the Editor-in-Chief and their trusted in-house support; deputizes for the Editor-in-Chief.
• Works with the Associate Editorial Director, the Editor-in-Chief and PLOS Publishing, Operations, Marketing and Communications, and Editorial colleagues to develop the journal’s editorial strategy; leads its implementation and progress reporting.
• Oversees manuscript allocation and handling as well as the commissioning of materials, and ensures the quality and integrity of the content at the journal.
• Handles a proportion of research manuscripts submitted, from initial assessment through publication.
• In collaboration with Editorial Department colleagues, maintains an active and engaged Editorial Board, ensuring Academic Editor expertise and availability matches journal scope and submissions profile.
• Assumes a key role in representing the journal externally, for example to authors, to journalists, at conferences.
• Together with the Editor-in-Chief and PLOS’ Publication Ethics team, works to swiftly and decisively resolve integrity and ethics issues.
• Oversees budget and monitors resource allocations.
• Ensures that all appropriate manuscripts are transferred to related PLOS journals.
• Works with PLOS’ Operations colleagues to ensure targets for quality, timeliness and consistency of submission processing are met.
• Prepares reports on journal performance, as well as other reports related to the areas of responsibility, as required.
• Identifies problems early and proactively proposes solutions for rapid resolution.
• Leads and contributes to cross-journal and cross-departmental projects.

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong experience in STM publishing, in an editorial capacity.
• Proven track record of excellent strategic thinking and leadership, willingness to think outside of the box in envisioning new offerings or approaches to medical publishing.
• Self-driven and able to lead the analytical assessment required to support the strategic positioning of the journal.
• Excellent organizational skills.

Qualifications

• University science degree or equivalent, preferably at the MD, PhD, or equivalent level, and with postdoctoral or equivalent experience.

Physical Requirements and Work Environment

• Prolonged periods stationary at a desk and working on a computer.
• Some national and international travel will be required.
• Some flexibility to work across time zones.

The base salary range we’ve established for this position is (UK) £75,000- £100,000. PLOS also offers a comprehensive benefits package that will be shared with candidates in the interview process.

About PLOS

Building on a strong legacy of pioneering innovation, PLOS continues to be a catalyst in open science, reimagining models to meet open science principles, removing barriers and promoting inclusion in knowledge creation and sharing, and publishing research outputs that enable everyone to learn from, reuse and build upon scientific knowledge.

Our work is supported by a highly skilled global in-house team, partnerships with local scholarly organizations, and the valued contributions of a diverse, international community of scientific researchers.

We’re committed to equal opportunity. We’re working to create a more equitable system of scientific knowledge and understanding. Removing barriers to inclusion and facilitating broad participation of voices is core to our success, inside and out. Beyond accepting distinct perspectives, we seek and support divergent backgrounds among our staff because we know differences strengthen our teams, our work, and our communities. We strongly encourage applicants of all identities to join us as we work towards a future where science is open to all, for all.