Thinking of joining our editorial team?
"I like knowing that my work as editor has an impact in the direction that the field is moving forward. I think that we need more qualified faculty who are willing to take on the role of editor."
—Editor in engineering
Editorial community
Elsevier’s editorial community includes nearly 100,000 researchers who manage and develop our journals. If you've received an invitation to join one of our editorial teams, joined one of our future editor events, or are interested to hear about editorial roles at Elsevier, this is the place for you!
Managing Director Laura Hassink explains how we serve the research community
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Managing Director Laura Hassink explains how we serve the research community
The editor role
As an editor for one of our journals you can make a true impact on your research field and provide a valuable service to your peers. Joining a journal’s editorial team is a commitment: you will need to invest time and effort to serve your professional community as an editor. The extent of your investment will very much depend on the particular position.
“It is an important and rewarding job. Keeps one informed, knowledgeable, visible in the community.”
— Editor in mathematics
The main roles we offer are:
Editors: Editors are responsible for managing the core editorial activities of the journal, including handling manuscript submissions, overseeing the peer review process, making editorial decisions, and promoting the journal within the community. The Editor-in-Chief is the most senior editor, often supported by other (“Associate”, “ Senior” or “Section”) editors, depending on the journal’s size and structure.
As an editor, your primary contact will be your Publisher, who is responsible for the overall success of the journal. Publishers and/or society partners are responsible for the journal strategy and operations, but they rely on editor insight and experience to help make decisions. Editors work closely with their Publishers on journal development and outreach activities, as well as identifying potential new editors and Editorial Advisory Board members for the Publisher to review.
Guest editors: Usually a temporary role responsible for inviting content and/or coordinating on a specific topic of great interest to the journal. Guest editors are mostly involved with special issues which bring together a number of contributors all writing on the same theme. Guest editorships are ideal positions to explore and learn what it’s like to be an editor and may lead to a more permanent role on the journal’s editorial team.
Editorial Advisory Board members: Editorial Advisory Board members support the journal by acting as peer reviewers if invited, promoting the journal, advising on journal development, and generally supporting the journal wherever possible. Editorial Advisory Board member positions are a great starting point for gaining peer review and publishing experience, and exploring your interest in editorial work.
Looking to make a permanent move to a full-time editorial role?
We also offer a number of in-house editorial positions at Elsevier — our Cell Press and The Lancet journals are managed by internal teams, and we employ managing editors to support the day-to-day running of journal portfolios. You may find all current openings and more information here.
Whatever your role, you’ll have the chance to help shape the future of research, connect with colleagues worldwide, and contribute to advancing human progress.
How we support our editors
“Elsevier has a large staff of knowledgeable professionals including publisher and production manager to make the journal operate efficiently. Also, Elsevier has great technical capabilities that aid with operation of the journal.”
— Editor in pathology
Our editors are key partners in the publication process so we provide them with a comprehensive range of resources and support mechanisms. As well as complimentary access to ScienceDirect and Scopus, dedicated reporting and a bespoke training course, there are a number of tools and systems we have developed to serve our editors. These are detailed on our new editors page but some highlights are below.
Excellent support from the publishing team – we are here to help! We provide you with a large and experienced team to support you in your role. A dedicated Publisher will work closely with you to support the development of the journal, complementing your research and editorial expertise with publishing experience. A Journal Manager will be responsible for all submission system and production-related matters throughout the editorial process. Last but not least, our marketing, ethics, technology and legal teams are ready to step in whenever needed.
Leading publishing house – with over 140 years of experience curating and verifying scientific knowledge, we are committed to upholding the highest standards of quality in partnership with our editors and the research community. We love innovation and are constantly evolving alongside changes in the research landscape. We are keeping up by adjusting the way we work, updating our operational workflows and systems as needed and developing new features and solutions in response to feedback.
Trusted editorial system – all our journals are now hosted on Editorial Manager, a platform managing manuscripts from submissions to publication. EM is used by hundreds of publishing houses and serves 8,500+ journals worldwide. Your manuscripts are in good and efficient hands!
What you need to bring
“Being an editor in chief of a high-quality journal is a very challenging and rewarding academic activity. It helps one to follow closely the recent trends in academic research and better understand the research subjects of current interest on an global level.”
— Editor in aerospace & computing
The level of expertise required to join one of our journal’s editorial teams greatly varies by position, but for all our editorial roles you will need to demonstrate sufficient subject matter expertise to be able to confidently and expertly judge other researchers’ work — usually in the form of a respectable publication record and a current position as a senior researcher.
Our editors are established researchers and key opinion leaders with deep understanding of their respective fields, and are well connected and respected in their subject community. Previous editorial experience is helpful to get up to speed quickly. The requirements to join editorial teams differs from journal to journal depending on their precise role in the journal.
At Elsevier, we realize that inclusion and diversity are critical for enhancing innovation, productivity, and decision-making and we are determined to improve the diversity of our editorial teams. Whatever your background — we will be happy to hear from you.
Join our team!
“It is an extraordinary experience since we learn a lot from the work of our colleagues and [it] is also very helpful for the scientific community.”
— Editor in biology
Most of our editors are directly recruited by our publishing teams to ensure their expertise and knowledge matches the current needs of the journal. If you are interested in joining the editorial team of a particular journal, please get in touch via the journal's homepage.
Read more from our editors
You might be interested to read about the experiences of one or more of our editors who have been interviewed for our dedicated Editors' Update blog. As you will see, there is a wide range of backgrounds, personalities and cultures which make up our editorial teams: