Publishing professionals are employed in a range of roles by society journals and commercial publishers.  This includes professional editors for scientific journals and commissioning editors for science magazines or book publishers.  The most common career destination for PhD-holders in publishing is a professional scientific editor at a journal, and we focus on this role here.

Roles and responsibilities

The tasks associated with a professional scientific editor role may include a subset of the following activities:

• Deciding whether an article is in scope of a journal and if it should be sent out to peer review. 
• Supervising the entire peer review life-cycle of manuscripts.  This includes:
  • identifying potential reviewers
  • assess reviewers reports
  • deciding whether to publish a manuscript
  • communicating editorial decisions to authors
• Attending editorial team meetings, where decisions are discussed.
• Actively engaging with the scientific community to promote the activities of the journal / attract papers & reviewers, and keep up-to-date with changes in the scientific field & in publishing.
• Identifying and approaching scientists to write reviews, books etc on specific topics.
• Writing editorial pieces, short research summaries etc.

Knowledge and skills

Editors need a broad scientific knowledge and critical thinking skills to read and assess the scope of articles from a range of fields. They have to make logical decisions based on expert reviews and clearly articulate the basis of the decision to authors. A core of the job involves engaging with authors, reviewers, and the scientific community using a variety of communication channels (e.g. email, in-person meetings, phone calls, social media platforms, and scientific events). The ability to reach out and build a strong network is therefore a key aspect of the role.

In our careers and skills survey,   5 science publishing professionals told us the competencies they use most in their daily work  The most frequently selected competencies were:

• broad scientific knowledge (selected by 86% of respondents)
• effective communication (selected by 86% of respondent)
• clarity of thought( selected by 57% of respondent)
• networking (selected by 57% of respondent)
• team.work (selected by 57% of respondent)

Language skills

For companies / societies publishing english-language journals, no additional languages are required. Scientific editors are generally not involved in copy editing, so while excellent communication skills are very important, you do not need to have perfect English grammar.

Career entry and progression

It is possible to enter scientific publishing directly from the bench. Applicants with at least one postdoc may be preferred over applicants directly from the PhD, but this depends on the publisher. The job title for the first position varies: depending on the publisher this can be ‘assistant editor’, ‘associate editor’, ‘scientific editor’ or another title. To understand which title is used by a specific publisher, you can look for their editors on LinkedIn and see what position they had when they joined the journal from academia, or look for the newest editors on their website (most journals have an ‘about the editors’ page with a biosketch for each of their editors).

Many scientific publishers offer possibilities for career progression, i.e. moving to more senior roles (editor, senior editor, chief/executive editor) at the same/another journal, or moving into other management positions within publishing. After gaining experience in the role, some editors also later change career direction – for example, moving into grant or science management roles, or becoming consultants in scientific writing.

Why consider this career area?

In our careers and skills survey, 5 publishing professionals told us what they appreciate most about their work. The most common selections were, that the work:

•  is intellectually stimulating
• can be completed  within reasonable working hours

Want to learn more?

Sources / further reading

• Overview articles:
  • So you want a career in publishing? – Blog entry
  • Going pro – Nature Methods Career article, 2021
  • Perspectives from a Scientific Editor – Council of Science Editor
  • Editing as a Scientific Career – Science Careers
  • From the bench to the press: Scholarly publishing as a career route for the scientist  – Developmental biology special issue ‘Careers beyond the bench’
• TIP: getting involved in peer review can help you understand how publishing works, and looks good in an application for an editorial role. Some resources related to this include:
  • Blog article from Alissa Hummer with advice on how to get involved in peer review
  • PreLights, an initiative from the company of biologists, where early researchers can apply to become ‘prelighters’ and highlight interesting preprints.
  • Contributing as an editor to the Journal of Emerging Investigators, a journal for middle and high school students to publish their research.
• Resources including
  • InterSECT Job Sim simulation library – including:
    • Make an Editorial Decision
    • Triage a Paper
  • Springer Nature Group videos with editorial and publishing staff on their roles  

Informational interviews

For all career areas, we highly recommend first learning more about the careers using the resources above, then conducting informational interviews to gain further insights directly from former PhDs working in career areas that interest you.

Last update: November 2023