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Friday, 24 July 2009

Where London science communicators might work

by @JoBrodie, brodiesnotes.blogspot.com 
Updated 28 December 2013 - sections marked in orange have been checked, others haven't. 
Shortened link for this post is http://is.gd/1KPor


How you can help...
1. Suggest an organisation that I've missed, or a category, or a resource - jo dot brodie at gmail dot com
2. Persuade organisations to set up a redirect so that http://www.organisation_name.com/jobs always goes to wherever their jobs page is. People do shuffle their websites but a standard pointer would be helpful to bookmark.
3. Create a local version for your region or country and I'll link it here. Section 180 has non-UK information including Scotland, Canada and one or two elsewhere. I'd love to embiggen this section but it's best done by someone local to the area.


Know of a scientific organisation I’ve missed?
Let me know! jo. brodie //at // gmail.com - Thank you.

Need to hear about jobs?
Other resources
  • ScicommJobs blog - a site I run on Wordpress to which I post jobs I come across and every post is also published to the @ScicommJobs Twitter feed
  • See Communication section of Sarah Blackford's blog (have a skim over the other bits too!)
  • Government Jobs Direct: links to job vacancies in UK Government and the public sector (made by @lesteph) - there are some sciencey ones in there, among lots of unsciencey ones.
Useful background information
Here's how I've ordered the list of vacancies pages
00. Networking
10. Medical research charities (AMRC members)
20. Other medical research / health charities
25. Graduate schemes
26. Internships
30. Royal Academies, Royal Colleges and Royal Societies
35. British Society of...
40. Other health or medical organisations
43. Environmental charities and organisations
45. Science and Discovery centres
46. Science festivals
50. Other scientific organisations
60.College of..., Institute of..., Society of...
70. Government - Science Policy jobs (to be continued...)
80. London Museums of Health & Medicine
90. London places
100. General
110. Research Councils
120. Universities
125. School science
130. Science writing, science publishing and science journalism, newspapers and magazines advertising jobs
130b. Science publishing (journals print and online)
140. Broadcasting: science on television and radio
150. Medical writing / pharmaceutical companies
160. Yet to be parsed among the headings already available...
170. List of lists
180. Outside London, other countries
___________________________________

Key
Organisation name and homepage linked on the left • term used on website for jobs on the right


00. Networking
It occurred to me that there really should be a category to highlight the importance of this, although obviously I can't actually put anything in it...
See also the four organisations / mailing lists mentioned in the first section above.
 


10. Medical research charities (AMRC members)
Section 10 checked 28/29 December 2013
Many charity jobs are posted to CharityJOB: http://www.charityjob.co.uk/
Third Sector (magazine / online) has umpteen jobs in charities (some scicomm, some not, some London, some not): http://jobs.thirdsector.co.uk/

20. Other medical research / health / patient charities
Section 20 checked 29 December 2013 
25. Graduate schemes
Section 25 checked 29 December 2013  
  • Cancer Research UK - their graduate scheme has a strand on 'Policy, Information and Communications' and also one on 'Science' which is more about engaging with funded researchers but I'm sure also involves scicomm.
26. Internships
Section 20 checked 29 December 2013  
Catherine De Lange of Naturejobs is collating (as of December 2012) information on internships. Hopefully more of them are paid than unpaid (everyone boo hisses at unpaid internships because they don't pay people for their work and exclude people who can't afford to work for free for a few months). More info at Nature's space though I don't know if they still have a dedicated section for internships as we head into 2014.

30. Royal Academies, Royal Colleges and Royal Societies
Section 20 checked 29 December 2013 


35. British Society of... for...


40. Other health or medical organisations
Section 20 checked 29 December 2013 


43. Environmental charities and organisations

45. Science and Discovery Centres
46. Science Festivals - this bit is unfinished
Some of these are large enough to employ a staff including roving microphone handlers for Q&As, front of house, writing up stuff for reports etc). If you're a researcher these are the sorts of places you might want to apply to demonstrate your science.

 Thanks to the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres and The British Council for already having rather useful lists.


50. Other scientific organisations

60. College of..., Institute of..., Society of...


70. Government - Science Policy jobs

80. London Museums of Health & Medicine http://www.medicalmuseums.org/

90. London places
90a. Burlington House (Piccadilly)
90b. Carlton House Terrace
90c. Exhibition Road & Kensington
90d. Grays Inn Road
90e. Lincoln's Inn Fields
  • Hunterian Museum (inside RCSurgeons)
  • Royal College of Surgeons of England

100. General

110. Research Councils UK Joint Recruitment Unit
Umbrella body for seven research councils, a number of which are relevant to science

120. Universities
I think there are several ways to consider science communication at universities: (i) almost all universities will have a press office so I'd suggest picking a science-research-heavy one for the most science communication, (ii) some universities are part of the Beacons for Public Engagement so will employ 'public engagement coordinators' and similarly titled roles, (iii) a number of universities teach science communication and science journalism so will of course employ science communicators and (iv) lectureships involving teaching science to undergraduates is also an important part of communicating science to the next generation...
125. School scienceGallomanor: I'm a Scientist Get Me Out of Here

130. Science writing or journalism / newspapers and magazines advertising jobs (and places to look)
Some of these are vacancies pages, others are just suggestions of publications to which you might pitch a story, or get ideas.


130b. Science publishing (journals print and online)
You could also investigate the learned societies many of which have their own journals or members' magazines, and there are plenty of scientific and medical journals around too.
  • BioMedCentral • Jobs (hat tip Lisa, from comment here)
  • Nature.com
  • PLoS

140. Broadcasting: science on television and radioSome will be vacancies pages, some production companies and some examples of good audio/visual science.


150. Medical writing / pharmaceutical companies [possibly less London based]
  • ABPI (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry), members of • Current job opportunities | Working at ABPI
  • BMJ Group
  • BNF (see Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, RPSGB)
  • eMC (electronic Medicines Compendium) / xPIL
  • EMWA (European Medical Writers Association) • Jobs (not necessarily AT EMWA, elsewhere) - hat tip Adam, in the comments
  • MHRA
I am a little bit "no free lunch-ish" about pharma companies have been a smidge reluctant to advertise them but it has been quite reasonably suggested that there should be some here, and they most definitely do employ science communicators... you'll find most of them listed in the ABPI (members of) linked above. I don't know if manufacturers of medical devices employ science communicators in quite the same way but shall endeavour to find out - their umbrella body is the ABHI (Association of British Healthcare Industries).

160. Yet to be parsed among the headings already available...
Some of these are already listed but have changed names and I need to double check
Under construction ;) (it was getting a bit chaotic!)

Vega Science Trust http://vega.org.uk/
National Stem Centre http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/news/opportunities-at-the-national-stem-centre
Science Learning Centres - National: recruitment / vacancies
Contact details for all centres East of England | East Midlands | London | North East | North West | South East | South West | West Midlands | Yorkshire and the Humber
Institute of Biomedical Science http://www.ibms.org/ - seems to publish these journals | Biomedical Scientist | British Journal of Biomedical Science | Pathology in Practice
Advertising Standards Authority Careers

170. List of lists
This section is for organisations which host jobs postings for jobs in their relevant field, for example there is no vacancy page for working AT the Geological Society, but the Society hosts information for job-seekers wishing to work in the geological field. If I come across a vacancy page for any of these (most jobs probably advertised via ABSW, psci-com or STEMPRA) I'd add it to a different section.


180. Outside London, other countries
See also Country-based resources on the ScicommJobs blog

Scotland
Organisations that might employ science communicators in Scotland - scicommjobs
 
Wales
 Centre for Alternative Technology
See also Science Centres, above.Australia
Australian Science Communicators (professional body for scicomm folk) @ausciomm
RI Australia aka RIAus

France
European Science Foundation (ESF) - vacancies

Switzerland
CERN - Recruitment 

US
Scientific American / Nature Jobs 
AAAS - American Association for the Advancement of Science - Employment

Canada
Canadian Science Communication special - scicommjobs




Bloggytracker (kind of like the Guardian's storytracker, showing how this post has been edited)

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*NEW* 25 August - now with RSS feeds :)
Tony Hirst (@psychemedia) has been a bit nifty with some Scraperwiki skills and has set up something akin to magic to sniff out any RSS feeds available from the websites listed below. I think the full list self-updates so I need to take a peek every now and again and transfer the job feeds here (there are all sorts of feeds in that list).

You can find the job feeds on this page wherever the  icon is. Hover over it, right-click and save the feed address to add to your reader - and new jobs are sent to you. Do what you can to encourage organisations to create RSS feeds for their jobs and I can add them here.

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What’s this page about?
Organisations will typically post details of their science communication job vacancies in several places - their own website where either a permanent job vacancies page exists or it will be flagged up in their news page, newspapers (eg Guardian jobs), specialist magazines, mailing lists such as those mentioned at the top of the post and various other places.


This blogpost focuses on the first option and lists scientific organisations' vacancies pages, if they have them, ie where they'd publish their own vacancies / jobs. 

It's heavily weighted towards biology / medicine as that's my preference, and almost exclusively London, again my preference. I'm only too happy to link to your blog post outlining science communication job vacancies in other cities or countries.


It includes a complete list for charities which are members of the Association of Medical Research Charities. If you work for a medical research charity or think you might like to (or any patient charity that communicates medical or scientific information to people) then I also run a LinkedIn group for Science communicators in medical research charities.


Anything in orange is probably to be found in more than one list.

Finding jobs on organisations’ websites
In the list above I've used the word that the site used (in case the page changes and you need to search from scratch - this happens quite often). If all else fails, check the site map, or email the organisation and ask (many do not actually have dedicated vacancies pages and will put new vacancies under 'news'). Also, note that some sites will use ourwebsite.org.uk/jobs in the address but refer to the page as 'vacancies'.
Website search tools do not always distinguish the word 'job' from 'jobs' and so both search terms may need to be used. Similarly some sites use vacancies, recruitment, careers, opportunities, working at [organisation], work with us... etc. so I recommend trying a creative variety of words and plurals.
My plan, once I rule the universe, is to politely force all organisations to follow the same pattern of http://website.address.org.uk/jobs where we can all find everything with ease.

Science communication jobs board blog - ScicommJobs
I have another blog to which I post job adverts and job descriptions.
ScicommJobs blog - new jobs are pinged to the @ScicommJobs twitter feed


The purpose of this isn't just to advertise jobs, but to build up an archive of job titles, roles and job descriptions. At the time of writing there are about 400 downloadable job descriptions which have been collected since October 2009. I began collecting the vacancies pages of science communication-y organisations in 2003 when I started looking for a job in this area. I wish I'd had this resource then so I hope you find it useful.
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