Three Editorial Opportunities with Evolution Letters

Com­mu­nic­a­tions Edit­or, Pre­prints Edit­or and Asso­ci­ate Editor

Com­mu­nic­a­tions Editor

Evol­u­tion Let­ters seeks a new Com­mu­nic­a­tions Edit­or to work with our authors to help pro­mote new research to wider audi­ences. The role will be par­tic­u­larly well suited to an early career evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gist with a keen interest in sci­ence communication.

The Com­mu­nic­a­tions Edit­or is respons­ible for the following:

- Liais­ing with authors of accep­ted art­icles to coordin­ate pro­mo­tion of their papers.

- Pro­du­cing day-to-day Twit­ter con­tent for the journal.

- Main­tain­ing the Evol­u­tion Let­ters blog, devel­op­ing blog con­tent and soli­cit­ing blog posts from authors.

- Devel­op­ing oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels, includ­ing the expan­sion of the Evol­u­tion Let­ters You­Tube chan­nel and explor­a­tion of oth­er social media plat­forms such as Instagram.

The time com­mit­ment required var­ies depend­ing on pub­lic­a­tion rates, but typ­ic­ally aver­ages around 1–2 hours per week.

Applic­ants must have a broad interest in evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy, sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion, and the use of social media in pro­mot­ing sci­entif­ic research. You should be self-motiv­ated, able to work unsu­per­vised, able to deliv­er to dead­lines, and famil­i­ar with the journ­al Evol­u­tion Let­ters and the work of its soci­et­ies (ESEB and SSE). The suc­cess­ful applic­ant will have the oppor­tun­ity for a full hand-over of the role with the exit­ing Com­mu­nic­a­tions Editor.

Pre­prints Editor

Evol­u­tion Let­ters seeks a new Pre­prints Edit­or to help identi­fy excit­ing pre­prints that fit the journal’s remit and scope. The role will be suited to a mid-career evol­u­tion­ary bio­lo­gist with a keen eye for the best research across the field of evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy and a repu­ta­tion for pro­du­cing high-qual­ity research.

The pre­prints edit­or is respons­ible for the following:

- Reg­u­larly check­ing bioRx­iv and oth­er pre­print serv­ers for excit­ing evol­u­tion­ary research

- Con­tact­ing cor­res­pond­ing authors of pre­prints and invit­ing them to sub­mit the work to Evol­u­tion Letters.

It is expec­ted that you would spend 1–2 hours per week identi­fy­ing the best research and con­tact­ing / cor­res­pond­ing with authors. The suc­cess­ful applic­ant will have the oppor­tun­ity to dis­cuss with the Edit­or-in-Chief what sort of papers would be ideally suited to the journ­al. The role is dis­tinct from an Asso­ci­ate Edit­or role; you would not be expec­ted to handle pre­prints that are sub­sequently sub­mit­ted to the journal.

Asso­ci­ate Edit­or with spe­cial­ism in Exper­i­ment­al Evolution

Evol­u­tion Let­ters seeks a new Asso­ci­ate Edit­or whose research expert­ise includes exper­i­ment­al evol­u­tion. The role will be suited to an early‑, mid- or late-career group lead­er who has a repu­ta­tion for car­ry­ing out cut­ting-edge research using any exper­i­ment­al evol­u­tion system.

You will be respons­ible for the following:

- Hand­ling manu­scripts, primar­ily but not exclus­ively, cov­er­ing exper­i­ment­al evol­u­tion research

- Encour­aging authors of cut­ting-edge exper­i­ment­al evol­u­tion research to sub­mit their manu­scripts to Evol­u­tion Let­ters e.g. after hear­ing the work presen­ted in sem­inars or at conferences.

It is anti­cip­ated that you will handle up to 20 (prob­ably few­er) manu­scripts per year, using the Schol­arOne manu­script man­age­ment sys­tem. Manu­scripts are ini­tially assessed for suit­ab­il­ity by the Edit­or­i­al Office and the Edit­or-in-Chief, before the E‑i-C assigns them to an asso­ci­ate edit­or. You will then make a decision on wheth­er manu­scripts are sent to review, identi­fy suit­able review­ers and make an edit­or­i­al recom­mend­a­tion when reviews are returned. 

All three roles provide an hon­or­ari­um of US$2000 per annum and mem­ber­ship of ESEB.

How to apply:

Please send a 2‑page CV along with max. 1 page cov­er let­ter explain­ing why you are inter­ested in the role to the Edit­or-in-Chief, Jon Slate (j.slate@sheffield.ac.uk). The Edit­or-in-Chief wel­comes enquir­ies about the roles.

Dead­line for applic­a­tions: Fri­day 17^th Decem­ber 2021

Inter­views will be held remotely by video call in early Janu­ary 2022, with the suc­cess­ful applic­ants tak­ing up their roles as soon as pos­sible afterwards.

Evol­u­tion Let­ters and its par­ent soci­et­ies wish to make evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy inclus­ive and access­ible to a wide, diverse audi­ence. We believe that build­ing a diverse edit­or­i­al board is a cru­cial part of this. We strongly encour­age applic­a­tions from people that are cur­rently under-rep­res­en­ted on our board, includ­ing people of col­our, people from coun­tries out­side of Europe and North Amer­ica, people with dis­ab­il­it­ies, and people who identi­fy as LGB, Trans or Non-Binary.