For editors and translators who already have professional experience in research-related work, there is no shortage of opportunities for finding work, though the likely income varies widely according to field.

Medical research and private industrial research are possibly the best paying areas.

For editors and translators who do not have much experience, it might be difficult to find a way into professional and research-related work.

Providing opportunities for editors and translators to gain research-related experience is one of the aims of the Research Cooperative, an NPO established by the present writer (a full-time researcher based in Japan). Our website now has almost 300 members, and steadily rising, and most of our members are researchers or science-writers with university experience.

If you are willing to offer volunteer work, free trials, or discount work, in order to gain experience, this could be a good way to invest in your own development as an editor or translator.

Please visit the Research Cooperative, look around the forums, set up your own profile page, and try using one or more forums for making offers. When making offers, emphasize topic areas that are attractive for yourself, because of your personal interests or because of their potential for leading to income generation in the future.

There is no danger of being flooded with unwanted requests for help if you are clear about you can do, and would like to do.

By using the Research Cooperative forums in this way, you can define and expand your own range of work experience, and gain experience in the directions that best suit you.

Sincerely,

Peter Matthews
Associate Professor
National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka

p.s. A plug for my own Museum: this effort to develop the Research Cooperative can be seen as a form of Applied Anthropology. Any editors or translators interested in the field of Applied Anthropology are most welcome to join the Research Cooperative (this subject area has been strongly promoted at the Museum in recent years).