Our Team
Josh Brown
Research and Strategy
As MoreBrain’s lead on strategy and research, Josh is uniquely well-placed to draw on his decade-and-a-half experience of leadership in open research infrastructures, programme management, and community of practice development. He brings deep knowledge of the global research ecosystem, along with many strong and positive relationships worldwide — including with institutions, funders, publishers, infrastructure providers, and more.
After qualifying and working as a librarian at the University of Brighton, Josh moved into open research infrastructures. In 2010 he joined Jisc, to shape their investments and innovation programme for improving research information management in the UK. He then brought those programme management and coalition-building skills to CERN, where he helped lead the SCOAP3 initiative, successfully coordinating a global network of libraries, consortia, funding bodies, and publishers to redirect funds formerly used to pay for journal subscriptions to pay for open access publishing in high-energy physics.
From 2014 – 2019, Josh worked at ORCID, where he combined the strong relationship-building and negotiating skills he developed at Jisc and CERN with his passion for supporting open research. As lead for ORCID-EU — supporting ORCID’s participation in the EC-funded project THOR (Technical and Human infrastructure for Open Research) — he was instrumental in helping build capacity for and adoption of persistent identifiers (PIDs) in Europe. After being promoted to Director of Partnerships, with a global remit, he brought together funders from around the world to reach consensus on the use of persistent identifiers in funding workflows.
Since leaving ORCID, Josh has continued to explore the challenges and opportunities of advancing and opening up research, working in partnership with funders, libraries, research institutions, policy-makers, and research infrastructure providers in dozens of countries on six continents (seven if you count Zealandia/Te Riu-a-Māui). He has used his deep and broad experience in research information, open research, scholarly communications, community-building, organisational strategy, and research policy to support numerous initiatives, non-profits, and businesses.
Josh’s expertise in strategy and research, together with his skills in developing robust frameworks and approaches to challenges such as governance and sustainability, can help your organisation achieve its potential.