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Details

Assistant Publisher

JOIN THE COMMUNITY. 

Making science better, together. 

careers@ioppublishing.org

Be part of a community working together to make science better. A society publisher with the perfect blend of not-for-profit purpose and commercial perspective. Here, we help each other be the best we can be: a team big enough to impact and small enough to care. 

We have an exciting opportunity for someone to join our growing team as an Assistant Publisher on a 12 month fixed term contract.

Location
Bristol, Hybrid
Department
Publishing
Employment basis
Full-time
Contract type
Fixed-term
Salary & Benefits
A competitive salary starting from £25,000
Closing Date
16/04/2026

Role Summary

As an Assistant Publisher, you will provide commissioning, administrative and title management support for our portfolio of broad scope, editorially inclusive journals (with collective topical coverage across the physical sciences), making an important contribution to the value and long term sustainable growth of IOP Publishing’s journals programme.

Key job accountabilities include: 

  • Acting as the first point of contact for external stakeholders - answering and escalating queries from authors, guest editors.
  • Carry out desk-based commissioning for a list of journals, in line with journal commissioning plans.
  • Day-to-day management of focus collections, liaising with external Guest Editors as necessary.
  • Regularly inform Publisher and Senior Publisher of commissioning activity progress.
  • Keep databases, as well as commissioning and contact databases up to date to ensure the accuracy of the information and effective communication.
  • Coordinating the activity of external journal stakeholders as directed (e.g. coordinating the content for Board meetings).
  • Monitoring and running reports for Senior Publishers on journal performance against agreed targets.
  • Assist with data retrieval for custom reporting and analysis for journal strategies and commissioning plans, by using both internal reporting systems and external resources. 

About you:

The successful candidate will demonstrate: 

Knowledge & previous experience

  • Publishing experience in STM publishing (books or journals) desirable but not essential.
  • Awareness of the role of academic research journals.
  • Interest in scientific developments.

 

 Skills & behaviours

  • Excellent communication skills (verbal and written) to work effectively with internal colleagues and external stakeholders (authors, reviewers, editors, board members)
  • Strong working knowledge of Excel.
  • Strong customer service ethos.
  • Ability to work autonomously and also as part of a team.
  • Good attention to detail.

 We know it is unusual for someone to tick every box so, if you don’t meet all the criteria, but demonstrate most of the skills and experience we are looking for, and have the enthusiasm to work with us, go ahead and apply.    

We aim to review applications soon after they are received and will arrange interviews when there’s someone we’re keen to meet, therefore we may conduct interviews prior to the closing date and reserve the right to close the advert early.    

Why work with us at IOP Publishing:    

Purpose:We are a world leader in the development of electronic publishing for the scientific community - working in the interests of science and scientists, we aim to maximise the impact of the research we publish.   

Culture:We offer a truly international culture with offices in Europe, Asia and the US and our reach is global. Our culture is the perfect blend of dedicated and intelligent professionalism, informal, friendly collaboration and authenticity with a social conscience.    

Financial Benefits: A competitive salary starting from £25,000 (Band B) depending on experience, an excellent pension scheme, a discretionary annual bonus scheme, and a range of other useful and cost-saving benefits available through our benefits platform.   

Health and Wellbeing:33+ days holiday (including bank holidays), a 35-hour working week, life assurance, cycle-to-work scheme, dental insurance, health care cash plan, and a great positive working environment in our brand new office in central Bristol - modern airy and designed with all of our colleagues in mind – for work and social time.    

Flexibility: The contractual location of this role is our Bristol office, but we have recently moved to a hybrid working model with a dynamic and blended combination of office and remote working, dependent on business and team requirements.  We are looking for someone to attend the Bristol office on a monthly or quarterly basis. Any travel to our Bristol office is at the employees own expense. 

To apply, please submit your CV through our careers site.    

IOP Publishing is an equal opportunity employer. Our goal is to ensure that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are built into our identity in a way that is natural and sustainable, visible through the work we produce, our company branding, our professional networks and the communities we serve and support, which includes our employees, talent communities and candidates. We particularly welcome applicants from under-represented backgrounds.    

We make recruitment and workplace adjustments wherever we can, so please let us know if there’s anything that we can do to support you.    

Please note that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for candidates. If however you already have the right to work in the UK or hold an eligible work permit or visa, we encourage you to apply for this position.