Outreach and Research Associate (A3102)

This full-time appointment—within the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Department of Sociology, and the Institute for Social Futures—supports an international, multi-institutional project, Community-led Open Publishing Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM), funded by Research England and the Arcadia Fund and led by the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University, in collaboration with several world-class universities. The project addresses the key technological, structural, and organisational hurdles—around funding, production, dissemination, discovery, reuse, and archiving—that are standing in the way of the wider adoption and impact of open-access (OA) books (see the project website for more information: https://www.copim.ac.uk/).

You will support the project team in relation to the Work Package titled ‘Revenue Infrastructures and Management Platform’. A key focus of the post is supporting the development of a new pilot library revenue and membership scheme to better enable the integration of OA books into libraries. This will feature the ScholarLed group of open access publishers alongside other key stakeholders: https://scholarled.org/.

You should have either a graduate degree (Master’s degree or higher), preferably within the social sciences, publishing, design, the humanities, or library science, or demonstrable experience in scholarly libraries or the publishing industry. Essential skills include a familiarity with debates around Open Access publishing and experience in networking effectively with non-academic stakeholders, which will be required in the project’s outreach and engagement work. Additional desirable skills include qualitative research skills, design skills, and/or a deep understanding of the contemporary context of Open Access book publishing or scholarly libraries. 

The Outreach and Research Associate although hosted by Lancaster University, will have the opportunity to work remotely from other locations. 

You will join us on an indefinite contract, however the role remains contingent on external funding which at this time is for 17 months.

Applicants should upload a CV and a cover letter (no more than two pages) outlining their suitability for this position, with their application.

Please contact Joe Deville (j.deville@lancaster.ac.uk) for more information about the project and for an informal discussion about the post.

We welcome applications from people in all diversity groups.

Closing Date: 08 Dec 2020
Category: Research