New opportunity

Freelance Web and Content Editor 

June – October 2021 

 

Background 

The Public Engagement team at Imperial College London is looking for a copyeditor with experience of writing for the web and using a CMS to create and update web content to support external and internal projects, in particular the Great Exhibition Road Festival, between June and October 2021.

The Great Exhibition Road Festival is a free, annual celebration of science and the arts for all ages. The festival is organised in collaboration with more than 20 culture and research organisations across South Kensington, including Imperial College London as well as the Royal Commission of 1851, Discover South Kensington, Royal Albert Hall, V&A, Science Museum, Royal College of Music, Natural History Museum and many more.

Returning in October 2021, the festival will invite people to discover how art and science can help inspire a greener future for the planet we share. Taking place in South Kensington and online, we’ll be celebrating our remarkable world and exploring how together we can protect its future against the imminent threat of climate change.

This role will play a key part in supporting the Public Engagement team and liaising with the festival’s partners to edit the event information to attract our key audiences and adding this content to Festival and Imperial websites, as well as creating ticketing web pages. While editing copy for the website and updating it will be a major focus of the role, it will also encompass writing other copy such as news stories and social media content. The freelancer will write and upload content around the Public Engagement team’s training courses, resources and case studies in addition to editing and uploading content for other public events, such as Imperial Lates.

We anticipate that the freelancer will be required for approximately 1-2 days a week in June and July, and then 1 day a week from August through to mid-October.

Key responsibilities 

• Editing copy about the Great Exhibition Road Festival events in October and the ongoing year-round digital events programme, to create compelling content that appeals to our target audiences. These include both adult and family audiences and while many of them will be highly culturally engaged with an interest in nature and the environment, we are also prioritising our target underserved local community audiences who might not currently visit the museums and research organisations in South Kensington.
• Liaising with Festival event partners to approve changes to copy.
• Editing and uploading event content to the festival’s website (greatexhibitionroadfestival.co.uk), the Imperial College London website (imperial.ac.uk), and setting up ticketing on Eventbrite for festival events.
• Editing and uploading supporting content such as visitor information, family activities and suggested itineraries from Imperial and partners to the festival website to increase digital engagement and ensure a positive visitor experience.
• Researching, editing copy and uploading content to listings websites for the festival.
• Copywriting content such as case studies and resources to support the capacity building part of the Public Engagement team around engagement training, opportunities and internal awards.
• Updates to specific areas of the Societal Engagement section of the Imperial website.
• Liaising with ticketing contacts from festival partners to align on-sale timings for events across the partnership.
• Providing updates on ticketing numbers to event organisers as needed.
• Writing stories for Imperial’s news site and internal newsletters about Public Engagement projects, such as seed-funded activities and outcomes as well as public events.
• Drafting social media content for Festival (@ExRdFestival) on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and the Public Engagement team’s Imperial Spark Twitter account
• Other reasonable duties as requested.

Essential:

• Experience using web content management systems to upload and edit web content
• Excellent copy writing and proof-reading skills with strong attention to detail
• Experience of writing for different public events audiences and on various channels
• An understanding of how to write for the web, including accessibility best practice
• Confident working independently when required
• Excellent organisational and time management skills, with the ability to keep activities on track.

Desirable:

• Experience using Eventbrite
• Experience at building positive relationships with colleagues, media and external contacts/organisations
• Some experience with internal communications
• Some basic image editing skills, such as cropping and resizing images
• An interest in and experience of social media content creation
• Experience working in a research, cultural or attractions sector environment.

Important details 

Basic training on using our websites’ CMS and Eventbrite will be provided as needed.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion across our projects and ways of working. We value, respect and consider everyone’s expertise, perspectives and experience when reviewing expressions of interest.  

Working days and fee 

The time commitment for this work is approximately 16-20 days across June – October 2021. We are flexible around when you choose to work as long as the work is delivered to the timeline, that you are able to attend key catch up meetings on pre-agreed days and that you are contactable by the Public Engagement team and partner contacts.

It is essential that you are available on the morning of 9 October 2021, to push content live for the first day of the Great Exhibition Road Festival.

Start date: June 2021. Date to be agreed, ideally as soon as possible.  

We are currently budgeting for a day rate of £250/day. There is some flexibility dependent on experience.  

Initial work in the summer term will be remote. As restrictions ease nationally and at the College, we expect that this role will continue to be done remotely, but if you would prefer to have a balance between remote and in-person working then we would be happy to discuss this further.

Expressing your interest 

Please send the below to Jo Childs, [email protected] by 11pm Wednesday 2 June 2021: 

• Your CV 
• Why you would be a good fit for this role (no more than 300 words) 
• Up to 3 examples of similar roles that you have done in the past - a brief description of the project and your role in the project. 
• Your day rate  

You will hear back from us within two weeks of the closing date. 

We will arrange conversations with those that we feel could be a good fit for the project w/c 7 or w/c 14 June. As we hope to begin this work with you later in June, we will move this forward as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, please get in touch at [email protected]