In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2020, hundreds of early-career staff working in scholarly publishing disclosed surprising details about their career ambitions and the barriers they face to realize them.

European Science Editing, a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal of the European Association of Science Editors, published a report on those surveys in May 2022. In early 2024, that article received “Best Original Research and Review” honors from the journal’s editorial board.

A third survey, just concluded, may reveal whether efforts to provide career support, especially mentoring programs, are making a difference.

“In the surveys, we were looking at people who were based in science, technical, and medical fields, as well as humanities and social sciences. The respondents work mostly within editorial departments, on books and journals. They were working in editorial, production, marketing,” said Rachel Moriarty, Publisher, Oxford University Press.

Along with Erin Foley, Director, Rightsholder Relations, CCC, Moriarty was a co-author of the ESE article.

“They told us, ‘I know lots about mathematics. I know lots about social sciences. But I don’t know about open access. I don’t know about different publishing models.’ That was a lot of the information we got back in terms of what skills were they looking for that we could support,” Moriarty told CCC’s Christopher Kenneally.

The surveys of early-career professionals necessarily capture a moment in the past. Nevertheless, according to CCC’s Foley, it is possible to look into the future and discern new business roles beginning to emerge, based on the general direction of responses.

“I think we will see a need to be more familiar with AI and with AI tooling, depending on your job function especially,” she said. “Candidates will need to be more aware of what’s happening in the AI space. Whether it seems like it touches publishing or not, AI will eventually touch publishing.”