Associate Research Integrity Adviser

Job Title: Associate Research Integrity Adviser

Location: Pune

Reports to: Research Integrity Manager

About Springer Nature

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians, and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms, and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 180 years, our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities, and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood, and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.
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About the Brand

The goal of the Publishing Performance and Intelligence Group (PP&I) is to help deliver next generation digital publishing at Springer Nature and, as a result, grow the number of published articles, especially in Open Access (OA). Working closely with the Journals Group, Production, Technology, Marketing and Customer Services, we contribute to a wide variety of support work. This includes increasing the number of transfers of articles between journals, the commissioning of new collections and strengthening editor engagement, as well as supporting and enhancing the end-to-end publishing process

About The Role

Research integrity and publication ethics are at the heart of everything we do. Springer Nature strives to share outstanding and robust research. With the help of our external academic editors and peer reviewers, we aim to publish high quality research that the research community can rely on. That is why Springer Nature is investing heavily in research integrity. We take a positive and proactive approach to preventing and addressing potential research integrity concerns, both by investing in technology, and by investing in our industry-leading team of research integrity experts. Springer Nature’s Research Integrity Group (RIG) supports all Springer Nature journals, books and databases in preventing and addressing concerns about research integrity and other breaches of publication ethics. We investigate research integrity cases and provide best-practice action plans to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the published record.

This is a unique opportunity to step into a new role for someone who is demonstrable research integrity experience and is keen to develop further as part of a brand new team. You will be part of a growing and industry-leading research integrity team. Doing this job at Springer Nature means you can make a difference where it matters.

Roles Responsibilities

• Support the Resolutions team mission and objectives by helping drive research integrity and publication ethics queries towards timely, consistent and well-documented resolution.

• Support the triage, assessment and prioritization of incoming research integrity and publication ethics concerns across journals, books and other Springer Nature products, using scientific comprehension to identify urgent matters, potential legal or reputational risks, and cases requiring escalation.

• Collaborate with Research Integrity Advisers, Senior Research Integrity Advisers, Research Integrity Specialists and Research Integrity Managers with investigations into research integrity concerns raised by internal and external stakeholders.

• Contribute to individual cases and large-scale investigations by gathering information, organizing evidence, opening or updating case-management tickets, preparing summaries, tracking actions, following up with stakeholders, and helping maintain case management .

• Use available in-house and external resources, databases, tools, templates and published information, under guidance where appropriate, to support the assessment and validation of concerns relating to publication ethics and research integrity.

• Prepare clear, accurate and professional draft correspondence to authors, editors and other stakeholders, using agreed templates, instructions and standard wording where appropriate, and seek review or approval before sending where required.

• Manage incoming correspondence with authors and other stakeholders, ensuring that communications are sorted, recorded, routed and flagged appropriately.

• Communicate effectively to provide support to experienced advisers and specialists in preparing best-practice advice, action plans and evidence summaries for in-house staff and external editors.

• Develop familiarity with publication ethics and research integrity issues, including corrections and retractions, authorship concerns, plagiarism, peer review manipulation, paper mills, image integrity, data integrity, conflicts of interest and other forms of publication misconduct.

• Ensure that work is carried out in line with relevant Springer Nature policies, COPE guidance, team Standard Operating Procedures and industry best practice and take accountability .

• Escalate complex, sensitive, urgent or ambiguous queries to the Research Integrity Manager, Research Integrity Specialist, assigned buddy or more experienced Research Integrity Adviser as appropriate, demonstrating decision quality .

• Maintain accurate and up-to-date case files, correspondence records, evidence logs, project plans and statistics with project management skills to support auditability, reporting and continuity.

• Manage an assigned workload effectively, prioritizing tasks in line with team needs, agreed targets and urgent issues, and being resilient while seeking guidance when priorities are unclear or competing.

• Contribute to the development, testing and improvement of workflows, tools, templates, SOPs and team processes by providing practical feedback from day-to-day case support work.

• Proactively contribute to meetings, operational check-ins and case discussions, and commit to completing assigned actions.

• Be action orientated and tackle difficult situations through logical thinking, careful communication, appropriate escalation and willingness to learn from feedback.

• Drive professional development by seeking out training opportunities, learning from experienced colleagues and building the knowledge, judgment and confidence needed to progress towards the Research Integrity Adviser role.

Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to graduate or postgraduate level in STEM, HSS, publishing, research ethics or a related field, or able to demonstrate equivalent relevant experience.

• Some familiarity with academic publishing, scholarly publication workflows, editorial processes or publication ethics is desirable.

• Some experience in a research integrity support, editorial support, publishing operations, ethics, compliance, quality-control or case-management role is desirable, but this is intended as a junior entry-level role with scope for development.

• Interest in publication ethics and research integrity issues, and motivation to develop expertise in areas such as corrections and retractions, authorship concerns, plagiarism, peer review manipulation, paper mills, image integrity, data integrity, conflicts of interest and related misconduct issues.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with excellent English language skills and the ability to prepare clear, professional correspondence using templates and guidance.

• Strong organizational, prioritization and time-management skills, with excellent attention to detail and the ability to keep records accurate and up to date.

• Analytical and logical thinker, able to review information carefully, identify inconsistencies or concerns, and summarize findings clearly.

Desirable

• Collaborative working style, with the ability to build effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders of different backgrounds, seniority levels and expe