Case study - Scientific Project Lead

Prior to joining Aspire, I had ~7 years’ experience in medical communications, during which time I had progressed from Associate Medical Writer to Scientific Team Lead. Although my day-to-day work throughout those 7 years focussed largely on content delivery, the evolving roles came with increasing exposure to project management-related tasks, such as managing status calls, budgets, resourcing, etc. Ultimately, as a Scientific Team Lead, I spent approximately 85% of my time on content delivery and 15% project management.

On paper, the SPL job description appears similar in many ways to the description of my previous role; it is just the relative proportion of the different tasks that has changed. The SPL role has varied between the accounts that I have worked on during my time at Aspire; from ~50:50 to ~85% project management in my current team.

SPLs primarily support with managing all aspects of scientific projects, including timelines, finances, databases, and team resourcing. They liaise with clients and authors, often regarding both scientific content and project management details, and may also brief and review work from medical writers. SPLs are process-orientated, good at prioritising work across multiple projects, and understand the interplay between projects, i.e. how the details of one project may impact several other projects.

What I enjoy about the role is the variety and that I can keep in touch with the science and medical writing, while also developing my skill set in other areas.