Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Business Analyst with strong publishing domain expertise, specifically within the Open Access (OA) publishing ecosystem. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience working with editorial, production, rights, contracting, pricing, and revenue workflows in Open Access and hybrid publishing environments. This role will support business transformation, process optimisation, system enhancements, and data-driven decision-making across the OA value chain.

Key Responsibilities

1. Business Analysis & Requirements Gathering

• Engage with editorial, production, operations, legal, finance, and technology teams to understand business needs within the OA lifecycle.
• Capture, analyse, and document detailed business requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and use cases.
• Conduct gap analysis across current-state OA processes (e.g., submission, peer review, APC management, licence selection, invoicing, and publication).
• Translate complex OA business rules (e.g., funder mandates, rights and licences, multi‑funding scenarios, waiver eligibility) into clear functional specifications.

2. Process Mapping & Optimisation

• Map end‑to‑end OA workflows using BPMN/Visio (submission → editorial → production → APC → invoicing → publication → reporting).
• Identify process inefficiencies, bottlenecks, compliance risks, and improvement opportunities.
• Support design of future‑state processes aligned with business strategy, OA growth initiatives, and customer experience enhancements.
• Collaborate with teams to drive operational excellence, automation, and simplification.

3. Open Access Business Expertise

• Apply deep understanding of OA models, including Gold OA, Hybrid OA, Transformative Agreements, Read & Publish deals, and APC/waiver structures.
• Interpret publishing policies, copyright/licensing requirements (e.g., Creative Commons licences), and funder mandates (e.g., UKRI, Plan S).
• Support OA governance, metadata standards (e.g., ORCID, Crossref, FundRef), and compliance reporting.

. Data & Insights

• Analyse OA performance metrics (submissions, APC revenue, uptake of waivers, turnaround times, compliance rates).
• Work with data teams to ensure accurate metadata, reporting, and analytics across systems.
• Support decision-making with clear dashboards, business cases, and insights.

5. Technology & Systems Support

• Partner with product, engineering, and vendor teams to support system enhancements across tools such as manuscript submission systems, rights/contracting tools, APC management platforms, financial/billing systems, and CRM.
• Assist in system evaluations, UAT, regression testing, and release validation.
• Ensure solutions align with OA policies, regulatory requirements, and operational workflows.

6. Stakeholder Engagement

• Facilitate workshops, requirement sessions, and SME interviews across global publishing teams.
• Act as a bridge between business SMEs and technology teams.
• Present findings, recommendations, and status updates to senior stakeholders.

Required Skills & Experience

Essential

• 5+ years of Business Analysis experience, ideally in academic publishing.
• Strong domain knowledge of Open Access publishing workflows and business models.
• Experience documenting requirements, user stories, process maps, and business cases.
• Understanding of APC workflows, funder policies, rights/licensing, metadata flows, and OA compliance standards.
• Hands-on experience with manuscript submission systems (e.g., Editorial Manager, ScholarOne), APC management tools, SAP/BRIM, CRM, or finance systems.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

• Strong analytical and problem‑solving capability.

Preferred

• Experience in process transformation, digital publishing, or workflow automation.
• Familiarity with data standards (Crossref, FundRef, ORCID), copyright frameworks, and OA policies.
• Exposure to Agile delivery methodology (Scrum/Kanban).

• Experience working in global or matrixed publishing organisations.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Publishing, Information Systems, or related field.
• Professional certifications (e.g., CBAP, Agile BA, Lean Six Sigma) preferred.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to work on transformative OA initiatives in a global publishing environment.
• Collaboration with cross-functional teams driving innovation in scholarly publishing.
• Growth opportunities within a dynamic and evolving landscape