Working Student, OA Funding & Policy Research

About Springer Nature

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About The Open Access (OA) Team

The OA team enables one of the fastest growing areas at Springer Nature. It has responsibility for the overall OA business including business strategy, revenue, performance monitoring, business models, policies, and managing OA transition. Part of the wider commercial business, the OA group works in close coordination with both publishing and sales teams.

The Working Student, OA Funding & Policy Research will help enable the business transition to open access by supporting in the update and maintenance of Springer Nature’s OA funding and policy database. This role also supports the OA policy team’s projects with ad-hoc market and desk research, as well as additional reporting tasks as required. The position reports to the Head of OA Policy and involves close collaboration with colleagues across the OA team to support OA strategies and initiatives.

OA Funding and Policy Database

This database stores information on the OA requirements that funders, universities, and research institutions apply to journal articles, books, and chapters, and the funding that they provide to cover the cost of OA publication. The database is crucial for supporting internal teams in identifying OA funding for Springer Nature authors, helping them make their work openly accessible, and informing Springer Nature’s OA strategy and policy development.

Main Responsibilities in Database Update

• Conduct research into the policy and funding information on OA requirements and publication funding from funders and institutions using internet searches, specifically organisational websites.
• Interpret these policy documents to identify key features of their OA policy requirements and OA funding conditions, utilizing the framework and guidance developed by the Springer Nature OA team.
• Enter detailed information about these OA policies and funds into the OA funding and policy database using Microsoft Excel, ensuring data is captured in a clean and consistent way.

Additional Responsibilities

• Produce reports and basic analysis using data from internal resources including the database, and other funding dashboards (e.g., monthly statistics on number of OA funds, impact of OA policies on SN output).
• Research details of funder or institutional policies on specific topics as required by the OA team.
• Conduct ad-hoc competitor and other desk research and reporting tasks as required, to support the OA team’s projects. Examples might include researching competitor publishers’ policies on a particular topic.
• Review lists of OA funding sources on our external website where required. Suggest updates to align with the data in the database.
• Explore and test AI tools, making use of them where appropriate to support responsibilities (e.g., summarise or query policy information for database or desk research).

Experience, Skills & Qualifications

• Proven experience of carrying out desk/web-based research is required.
• Previous experience or academic study of policy, publishing, or scholarly communications environment would be desirable but is not mandatory.
• Advanced English language skills required: C2 level of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
• Excellent internet research skills, able to interpret, analyse and report on complex policy and other technical information.
• Strong Excel skills, including data entry, cleaning, reporting and data visualisation (e.g., pivot tables and graphs).
• Able to adhere strictly to guidance/protocol to ensure that information is captured in a highly consistent and accurate way.
• Able to create clear and logical reports containing qualitative and quantitative information.
• Thorough and detail-oriented.
• Strong organisational skills with an ability to meet deadlines.
• Adaptable and flexible, responds well to changing priorities to meet the needs of the team.
• Knowledge and understanding of open access publishing and policies would be desirable.
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BSc) minimum requirement.
• A degree in political science, business, law or economics would be an advantage but is not mandatory, given the role involves interpreting complex policies and guidance containing technical language.

Key skills/competency

• Open Access Research
• Policy Analysis
• Data Entry & Management
• Microsoft Excel
• Web Research
• Scholarly Communications
• Reporting & Analysis
• Organizational Skills
• Attention to Detail
• AI Tools Exploration