Siân Harris Email & Phone Number

Bristol, Gb

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

I support researchers in communications and engagement about their research, as well as contributing to the wider strategic goals of the research unit. This involves developing press releases; editing blog posts and case studies; coordinating public engagement activities; managing websites and social media; providing training and mentoring; supporting wider strategic communications; and monitoring and evaluating communications and engagement activities. I have organised visits to primary schools and festivals and I coordinated a major hybrid conference in Bristol and online in July 2022 to celebrate the 200th birthday of Gregor Mendel. I also engage with wider initiatives around improving the research system, including participating in work on equality, diversity and inclusion in grant application processes; working with the UK Reproducibility Network; and participating in discussions about open access and equity.

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

COUNTER is a not-for-profit initiative that provides standards to improve how usage metrics of electronic resources is collected and reported in the research and education sector. I look after communications and engagement with members and potential members. My work includes writing news stories and email newsletters, looking after social media and organising events. I also helped with the development of a new strategy, branding, website and messaging.

I provide freelance communications, writing, editing and research support to organisations in the research, international development, and scholarly publishing sectors. Some of my current and past work is shared below.

I supported the work of this charity by conducting literature reviews of relevant research.

Oxford, England, United Kingdom

I managed and implemented communications processes and activities within the CEDIL programme. This included coordinating the copyediting, design, publication and promotion of papers, blog posts and other programme outputs; looking after the programme’s website and social media; and increasing engagement with wider stakeholders. I oversaw a refresh of the programme’s website, set up a YouTube channel and developed a plan to ensure the long-term accessibility and discoverability of the programme published outputs. In addition, I managed communications about CEDIL’s annual online conferences in 2022 and 2023. I oversaw the annual stakeholder survey in 2022 and I regularly monitored and reported on the reach of communications outputs and activities.

Oxford, United Kingdom

I managed, wrote and edited the publications output for INASP; developed and implemented a media engagement strategy; and managed websites and social media channels. I also contributed to funding proposals; monitored and evaluated the reach of communications; and played a strategic role in an annual Publishers for Development conference. My close involvement with programme work also involved providing support and mentoring to Southern partners with their communications activities, as well as providing more formal communications training. In addition, I contributed as a researcher on projects relating to research access in low- and middle-income countries. This included being a lead author on the Research4Life 2020 user review and a researcher on a study into open access in low- and middle-income countries, which was commissioned by FCDO and provided evidence to inform the development of FCDO’s and UKRI’s open-access policies. I was a Chef on the Scholarly Kitchen blog, a committee member on the Think. Check. Submit. initiative to educate about avoiding predatory publishing, and helped develop the Journal Publishing Practices and Standards framework.

Oxford, United Kingdom

INASP is an international-development organization that supports the access, communication and use of scholarly research. Founded in 1992, INASP works with over 80 countries, providing focused support to partners in more than 25 of those countries. As Communications Coordinator, I managed the communication of INASP’s activities to funders, partners, higher-education professionals in the north and south, the media and the interested public.

Research Information is a global publication, online and in print, covering the information that academic and corporate researchers need for their research. It provides an unbiased perspective on hot topics in the industry such as open access, research data, policy moves, standards efforts, digital preservation and purchasing models, as well as expert interviews and news of new products.As editor I wrote or commissioned and edited all the content in the magazine, website and email newsletter. I was also heavily involved in the strategic direction of the publication. In addition, I spoke at industry conferences and have written white papers relating to topics in this industry, in particular reports on roundtable discussions with academic librarians.

I have written and edited articles in a variety of areas of science and technology, especially in photonics, telecoms, environmental science, life sciences, computing, and engineering education. Publishers I have written for include Institute of Physics Publishing, Royal Academy of Engineering, Nature Publishing Group, SPIE, and Institute of Engineering and Technology. I have also done copywriting and editing for a range of corporate clients, ranging in size from multinationals to technology start-ups, and I worked on white papers about early open-access mandates.

As features editor I commissioned and edited features on various aspects of optics and lasers.

I was involved in planning and launching Wireless Europe, a pan-European magazine about mobile telecoms technology. This involved building up a knowledge of the technology involved, the trends in the industry and a wide network of contacts. On a day-to-day basis I wrote, commissioned and edited news stories, analysis, feature articles and interviews, as well as liaising with design and sales staff and covering for the editor when he was away. I also attended many industry events and was involved in organizing two of our own industry networking events.

As site editor, I was responsible for all the editorial content on the website, particularly news, analysis and new products. I developed and launched an email newsletter that was sent to nearly 90,000 recipients. I was also involved in strategic development discussions about the site and represented the website at industry events.

In my role as assistant editor on Scientific Computing World I was primarily responsible for writing news and new product stories, as well as commissioning and editing book reviews and writing features articles. I also represented the magazine at industry events.

Phd, Inorganic Chemistry

Synthetic and structural studies of bismuth and antimony alkoxides, amides and halides

Bsc, Chemistry