Scientific Writer

Job Description

JOB RESPONSIBILITIESThe Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) serves as the connective tissue for global health across all 15 Harvard schools. As a university-wide hub, we convene and facilitate collaboration between world-class faculty, students, and global partners to ensure that expertise in multiple disciplines aligns to advance health equity worldwide. Our work is grounded in the belief that we must inform each other's work to transform health at every level.

HGHI seeks a Scientific Writer to support the institute’s scholarly and research mission. Reporting to the Executive Director and working in collaboration with HGHI’s Faculty Director and, at time with affiliated faculty, this role is responsible for the production of high-quality institutional scholarly products, including grant proposals, technical policy briefs, research reports, and working group publications.

This is an institute-level position supporting HGHI’s collective research and programmatic activities. This role requires the ability to navigate both technical and public-facing writing, ensuring that institute outputs meet rigorous academic standards while remaining accessible to diverse stakeholders, including funders, policy makers and, at times, the broader public.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Serve as writing lead for academic outputs, grant proposals, reports, policy briefs as assigned by Executive Director in collaboration with Faculty Director.
• Research, draft, edit, and produce technical policy briefs on global health topics for the institute, funders, and public.
• Search literature, compile literature reviews, synthesize complex research evidence into clear, policy-relevant documents that support HGHI’s mission.
• Revise scientific manuscripts, research papers, and reports for technical and specialist audiences.
• Ensure accuracy, rigor, and appropriate citation of sources across all institutional publications, adhering to institutional guidelines and publication standards.

Scientific Editing and Quality Assurance

• Provide technical review and editing of public facing communications materials (press releases, newsletters, website content, and social media) produced by the Communications team to ensure scientific accuracy.
• Maintain consistency in tone, style, and formatting across HGHI’s scholarly and institutional publications.
• Stay current on trends in scientific communication, publication standards, and ethical and responsible use of AI-assisted writing tools, integrating best practices into HGHI’s writing and editing workflow.

Grant Writing and Institutional Proposals

• Draft, edit and manage the production of grant proposals and funding applications on behalf of HGHI to external funders including foundations, government agencies, and multilateral organizations.
• Collaborate with the Faculty Director, Executive Director and, when assigned, affiliated faculty to translate research concepts into compelling, well-structured proposals that meet funder requirements.
• Prepare ancillary proposal materials including budget narratives, letters of support, bio sketches, and compliance documentation in coordination with the Finance Team.

Cross-Institutional Coordination

• Coordinate with internal teams and external collaborators, including partner institutions, co-investigators and journal editors to produce cohesive, polished content for joint projects and publications.
• Prepare and organize ancillary materials, figures, appendices, graphs, copyright permissions, and other materials to submit to publication platforms, as necessary.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications

• Five or more years of professional experience in scientific or technical writing, with demonstrated experience writing grant proposals, research reports and technical policy documents.

Additional Qualifications and Skills:

• Master’s Degree (MA, MS, MPH or equivalent) in public health, global health, or a related field.
• PhD or doctoral degree in a relevant field preferred; equivalent professional experience in grant writing and scientific publishing will be considered.
• Subject matter expertise in global health, public health, including familiarity with major funders, research frameworks, and policy processes in these fields.
• Experience writing successful grant proposals for foundations and government agencies.
• Experience managing or leading writing projects with diverse stakeholders in academic or research institutions.
• Proficiency in project management tools (e.g., Asana), Microsoft Office Suite, and citation management software (e.g., Zotero, RefWorks, Sciwheel).
• Familiarity with AI-assisted research and writing tools, with an understanding of their responsible application in scholarly contexts.