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Well it’s been 2 fast paced weeks since I started in the Books Team and I have enjoyed getting to grips with how to publish a book! Books is my final rotation; I can’t believe a year has gone by already!

Leaving the Industry Team behind was hard as I had enjoyed being part of the team. I had been helping to organise the Chemistry Means Business: Industry & Technology Awards dinner ceremony in London and learnt a great deal about events management. Working across many different departments in a matrix was challenging but I enjoyed having the responsibility in managing the project. I created an online map of our Enterprise Plus companies- which is now live. The map was created to help our companies to network with each other and find potential customers or partners. 

Now I’m in Books and the team have been great- getting me up to speed with the many applications and software packages we use to publish a book. At the moment I’m looking after 6 books at various stages of production. Most books go through a review process and once approved we inform the authors or editors and contracts are signed. Authors then write the content and send us the final manuscript. The production team then take over and edit the manuscript. They then send the manuscript to type setters and then finally to the printers. The process takes 6 months from the manuscript being submitted to the hard cover copy being printed. All our recently printed copies hold pride of place on the shelf in the Books area. Some of our books are part of a subject specific series. We also have popular science books, textbooks and special periodical reports that highlight research carried out in a subject area within a certain year. Take a look at our books.

I’m also working on updating pages on our Books web pages so that they can be much more engaging for the website user. To help with this I’m getting trained in Google Analytics to help monitor the site and how it’s being used to help us create better user environments. 

Ive been working with the Book Sales Team as well. I’m researching about the books trade environment and booking appointments with distributors and book sellers at the London Books Fair- where anyone who’s anyone in Books publishing comes to.

This weekend past I helped out at the Cambridge Science Festival at the University of Cambridge’s Chemistry department. We had 5 stalls- representing our global challenges drive with various fun activities for children to learn more about how chemistry can be used to. I helped to create the Health stall with my partner Katrina. We created a Protein- Drug puzzle (out of plaster, paper mache and chicken wire!)- to help children understand the drug discovery process. The protein models were time consuming to make but I had a lot of fun creating an activity from scratch.  The whole day was a blast and was managed expertly by Debbie. All the grads and our volunteers worked very hard to get children inspired in chemistry!

     
Helping kids make medicines at the Health stall 



An aardvark popped by to see the Chemistry Department's experiments!
 

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Anu is a Graduate currently working in the Books Team on the Royal Society of Chemistry's Graduate Scheme. To see if we are currently recruiting for the RSC Graduate Scheme click here
 

 

 

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Two down, one to go!

 

So, this is my last day in the Strategic Partnerships team. When I come in on Monday it's all about making sure I remember to walk to my new desk in Marketing.

Throughout this rotation I've had the chance to develop  my writing skills and learn about communicating to a range of audiences.  I have written a brochure for one of our programmes, been involved in some grant funding applications and also tried my hand at a few more Chemistry World articles. February 2015 was the first anniversary of our Yusuf Hamied Inspirational Chemistry Programme which we launched in partnership with The Salters' Institute. To celebrate this, I was tasked with creating a brochure about the programme. One of the great parts of writing this was getting to talk to all the different people involved and hearing about what they've been doing on the project, although I didn't get to talk to Dr Hamied himself! But it was really satisfying when I got to see the end product designed and printed.

 

Over the last six months I have learnt so many new skills, one of the biggest for me being in commercial sales. I have been talking with a number of our Enterprise Plus members to ensure they are aware of all the benefits we provide and to help them advertise their company in Chemistry World. It's been a great way of finding out more about our Commercial Sales team.

 

As well as the various projects I've been working on, I've had the opportunity to attend events and go on visits to meet with partners which has been really fun. I was so pleased to be invited to the Bill Bryson Prize for Science Communication award ceremony back in October which was held down in Westminster at the House of Commons.

 

I’ll be sad to leave the Strategic Partnerships team but I'm really looking forward to what the final six months of the Graduate Scheme have in store for me.
 

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Geri is a Graduate currently working in the Strategic Partnerships team on the Royal Society of Chemistry's Graduate Scheme. To see if we are currently recruiting for the RSC Graduate Scheme click here.

From bench monkey to science journalist wannabe in just three simple steps!

After having spent five years as a researcher, I got the unique chance to work as a trainee with the RSC - a very exciting change! I’m currently on rotation with Chemistry World. Everyone has been friendly and welcoming from day one, amazingly helpful and supportive. Working with theChemistry World team has introduced me to a huge variety of tasks, only few of which I can describe here. It certainly never gets boring! It is also extremely rewarding having an actual physical product containing bits of my work on my desk at the start of each month – and knowing that over 50,000 members will receive the magazine, too.