Science Editors Company

What Science Editors Company does

Science Editors Company operates as Electv Training, a specialist researcher development company founded in 2011 and headquartered in Edinburgh, UK. The company designs and delivers professional development for the academic research community — primarily postgraduate researchers, postdoctoral researchers, and research leaders within UK and European universities, Centres for Doctoral Training, doctoral training partnerships, NHS trusts, and government agencies.

The core product set comprises more than 20 live, half-day and full-day workshops (delivered on-site or online, all mapped to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework), a catalogue of self-paced on-demand courses hosted on Teachable with certificates on completion, and an institutional licensing model that bundles the catalogue for unlimited researcher access under an annual fee and supports LMS deployment into Canvas, Moodle, and Blackboard. Supporting the offering is a suite of proprietary tools: the AIR Framework (published CC BY 4.0 on Figshare), the AI & ME Directory of 40+ AI tools, the AI Planning Canvas, a Prompt Library, the Funding Planning Tool, the Ink & Insight Directory of 50+ graphic types, and the Elements Skills Analysis tool.

The business is a private, bootstrapped division of The Scientific Editing Company (Scottish company number SC402418). Revenue is generated through per-workshop fees, annual institutional licensing subscriptions, individual course purchases on Teachable, webinar fees, and bespoke consultancy for graduate schools and doctoral training programmes. Distribution is primarily direct institutional sales, supplemented by content marketing on Substack, LinkedIn, and Brevo-managed email. The company is intentionally small (1–10 employees) with no external funding, and its strategic emphasis in 2025–27 is on expanding AI-related training, institutional licensing, and research-leader offerings.

Name

Science Editors Company

Legal name

The Scientific Editing Company

Website

https://scieditco.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Science Editors Company (Electv Training) is an Edinburgh-based specialist researcher development company founded in 2011 that designs and delivers workshops, on-demand courses, and institutional licensing for postgraduate researchers, postdocs, and research leaders at universities, CDTs, NHS trusts, and government agencies across the UK and Europe.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Researcher Development Training

NAICS

Professional and Management Development Training (611430), Professional and Management Development Training (61143), Business Schools and Computer and Management Training (6114)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYEDAGAKAC

Corporate Learning & Training Content Development

Education/Educational Publishing & Learning Content/Instructional Design & Content Development Services

SECONDARYEDAAAPAB

Information Technology & Software

Education/Adult & Continuing Education/Industry-Specific Training (Healthcare, Tech, etc.)

SECONDARYEDANAIAE

Project, Process & Quality Certification Prep (PMP, PRINCE2, Lean Six Sigma, ITIL)

Education/Tutoring & Test Preparation/Professional Certification & Licensure Exam Prep

Keywords

• Researcher development training
• Academic writing workshops
• Doctoral training programs
• Higher education training
• Researcher online courses

Headquarters

HQ city

Edinburgh

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Live Workshop Delivery: Half-day and full-day workshops delivered online or on campus at universities and organisations. Priced per workshop session with group sizes of 25 or more. All workshops mapped to Vitae RDF.
2. On-Demand Courses: Self-paced online courses on Teachable platform. Available at individual level with certificates awarded on completion. Also available free at point of use for researchers at subscribing institutions under institutional access.
3. Institutional Licensing: Annual institutional licence giving all researchers at subscribing institutions access to the full Electv course catalogue without per-seat fees. Institutions pay a single annual licence fee based on institution size and scope. Includes LMS deployment options.
4. Webinars: 45-minute webinar sessions for research groups and institutions.
5. Consultancy Services: Bespoke training design, policy support and consultancy for graduate schools, doctoral training programmes and research development offices.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Science Editors Company operates its Electv Training division, which designs and delivers specialist researcher development training for postgraduate researchers, early-career researchers, postdoctoral researchers and research leaders. The core commercial offering consists of 20+ mapped live workshops, on-demand self-paced courses on the Teachable platform, annual institutional licences for unlimited researcher access with LMS integration, and bespoke consultancy for graduate schools and doctoral training programmes. All training is aligned to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework and covers academic writing, publishing, AI and digital skills, and career planning.

Product overview

Electv Training is a specialist researcher development company offering professional development for researchers in higher education. The core offering consists of Live Workshops (20+ half-day and full-day workshops mapped to the Vitae RDF) and On-Demand Courses (self-paced courses on Teachable covering writing, publishing, AI, digital skills, and career development). Institutional Licensing provides unlimited access to content under a single annual licence with LMS integration options. Consultancy Services offer bespoke training design for graduate schools and doctoral training programmes. Supporting resources include the AIR Framework (a structured framework for documenting AI use in research), AI & ME Directory (40+ AI tools mapped to research tasks), AI Planning Canvas (strategic planning tool), Ink & Insight Directory (50+ graphic types), Prompt Library, and Funding Planning Tool. All training is aligned to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• AIR Framework: A structured framework (Artificial Intelligence in Research) to help researchers make AI use explicit, transparent and defensible across the research lifecycle.

Products and services

• Live Workshops Half-day and full-day workshops delivered online or on campus to groups of 25+ at universities, Centres for Doctoral Training, doctoral training partnerships, NHS trusts, government agencies and companies with research-active staff, in person, online or as 45-minute webinars. All workshops are aligned to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework.
• On-Demand Courses Short, asynchronous, certificate-bearing courses on writing, publishing, R programming, data visualisation, networking, generative AI, research funding, website building and productive writing for individual researchers accessing them on the Teachable platform, or for institutional subscribers accessing them through institutional licensing.
• Institutional Licensing Annual licence giving universities and research organisations unlimited access to on-demand courses, frameworks and resources for all their researchers, with optional LMS deployment into Canvas, Moodle or Blackboard, replacing per-seat fees with a single annual fee sized by institution.
• Consultancy Services Bespoke training design, policy support and consultancy for graduate schools, Centres for Doctoral Training, doctoral training programmes and research development offices that need tailored curricula rather than off-the-shelf workshops.

Quantifiable outcome

• 34,000+ researchers trained
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

AI capability7 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• UKRI Future Leaders Fellows Development NetworkminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerElectv Training developed the 'Leading principled AI practice toolkit' for the UKRI Future Leaders Fellows Development Network. This collaboration contributed to AI strategy sessions offered for research group leaders.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Springer Nature Author Academy: Springer Nature's training resources for authors and reviewers, including courses on manuscript preparation and publication strategy. Direct peer for the publishing and writing portion of Electv's catalogue, although it is freely available and not commercial at the same institutional licence tier.
• Nature Masterclasses: Nature Masterclasses is the in-house training arm of Springer Nature, offering online courses and workshops on scientific writing and publishing for researchers. It is a direct competitor to Electv in the researcher development training space, sharing the same target audience (PhD students, postdocs, ECRs) and Vitae RDF-aligned positioning.
• Elsevier Researcher Academy: Elsevier's free training platform for early-career researchers covering publishing, writing, research ethics, and career skills. It is a direct peer to Electv as both serve academic researchers with on-demand and live training, and increasingly compete on AI literacy modules for researchers.
• Wiley Researcher Academy: Wiley's training portal for researchers offering modules on publishing, writing, open research, and career development. Direct peer given overlapping audience and content type, particularly in writing and publishing workshops that map to the same Vitae RDF domains as Electv's offering.
• The Publishing Training Centre: UK-based training provider offering courses on academic publishing, journal editing, and scholarly communication. Direct peer for the publishing skills portion of Electv's catalogue, with comparable workshop format and similar institutional buyer base in UK and European universities.

Emerging players

• Research Consulting: Research Consulting is a UK-based consultancy providing research strategy, evaluation, and training services to universities, funders, and government. Emerging peer in the researcher development consultancy stream that overlaps with Electv's Consultancy Services offering for graduate schools and doctoral training programmes.
• Digital Skills Education: A specialist provider of digital and AI literacy training for higher education and research. Emerging peer given partial overlap with Electv's AI & Digital Skills workshops, particularly for university clients seeking standalone AI training rather than the integrated research-skills offering Electv provides.

Broad incumbents

• Coursera: Coursera is a large MOOC platform with hundreds of courses on academic writing, research methods, and AI skills. It is a broad incumbent in professional and continuing education; while not specialised for academic researchers, institutions sometimes substitute Coursera licences for bespoke researcher development, putting it in competition with Electv's institutional licence.
• edX: edX is a MOOC platform owned by 2U offering university-branded courses across professional skills, data, and AI. Broad incumbent comparable through its institutional licence model and breadth of researcher-relevant content; less specialised than Electv but represents an alternative procurement path for graduate schools.

Others

• Vitae: Vitae is the UK-based organisation that maintains the Researcher Development Framework (RDF) used as a mapping reference by Electv and most UK researcher developers. It is an enabler/ecosystem partner rather than a direct competitor, but its RDF standard effectively shapes Electv's curriculum and could expand into training delivery itself.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/scientific-editing-company
• Xx.com/scieditco
• Facebookfacebook.com/182573945135356

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Science Editors Company