Interdisciplinary research teams are crucial for tackling complex societal issues but often struggle with goal alignment, leadership, and communication. This reflective inquiry article explores expanding the role of Research Administration (RA) and Research Development (RD) professionals as team coaches to address these challenges and improve team…

Despite the increasing recognition for the scientific and societal potential of interdisciplinary research, selection committees struggle with the evaluation of interdisciplinary proposals. Interdisciplinary proposals include a wider range of theories and methods, involve a more diverse team, pose a higher level of uncertainty, and their…

A major pre-award administrative challenge research universities face is turnaround time for generation of high-quality NIH Data Training Tables for NIH training grants (e.g., T32, K12, TL1, KL2, R25s) which are required for training grant submission proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Universities with dedicated training grant…

Among strategies that campus leaders and research administrators employ to spur interdisciplinary research in U.S. higher education, one of the costliest--and increasingly popular--is designated interdisciplinary research spaces and buildings. Yet while interdisciplinary research buildings, often focused on the sciences, stand as significant…

Little is known about the university-based professionals who facilitate research impact and the networks they form to build institutional capacity. This article explores the efforts of Research Impact Canada, a pan-Canadian professional network dedicated to building institutional capacity for research impact across disciplines. Based on interviews…

From an understanding of knowledge mobilisation as a set of strategies that favour responsible and inclusive research, the aim of this paper is to identify the obstacles or barriers to carrying out such research in higher education institutions, as perceived by researchers. In this descriptive study, content analysis is used to examine…

As data-informed decision-making continues to evolve across multiple disciplines in higher education institutions, and as the role of research administration continues to expand from proposal submissions, compliance, and managing research and development expenditures to a profession with an active partnership with investigators to support…

Research capacity building is a process by which individuals and organizations develop skills and infrastructure resulting in greater ability to conduct useful research. Frequently, research quality and productivity measures focus on outcomes, such as peer-reviewed publications or grants awarded. Such distal measures are not informative when…

The quality of a research study application sends a distinct signal to the institutional review board (IRB) about the skills, capacities, preparation, communication, experience, and resources of its authors. However, efforts to research and define IRB application quality have been insufficient. Inattention to the quality of an IRB application is…

Purpose: Securing ethical approval can be a frustrating and opaque experience for some creative practice research students who may find the processes required of them not well suited to their specific inquiry. This can lead to an erosion of trust between students and their institutions. This paper aims to synthesize perspectives representing both…

Research universities and the federal government partner to foster societal, scientific, and technological advancements, but the federal research grant process is criticized for its procedural inefficiencies. Principal investigators and research administrators lament losing time to bureaucratic regulations, unwieldy processes, and burgeoning…

This case study is based on research undertaken in 2021 that was prompted by the disruption of COVID-19 in higher education institutions and the subsequent pivot to online learning. The research explored a cross-institutional change project, which was supported and enabled by an agile and matrix-led working environment. The Transformation Academy…

This study examined the applications and perceptions of AI tools in doctoral studies, focusing on their efficacy in enhancing research effectiveness. A survey found that most participants used AI tools in their doctoral studies (63%), with the majority of those users reporting some positive impact from their usage. The most indicated uses of AI…

To initiate clinical research studies successfully and efficiently, it is critical to develop a strong, feasible, and well-written study protocol early in the start-up phase. The University of Minnesota's Clinical Research Support Center designed and implemented a structured Feasibility Review process in 2018 that addresses common start-up…

The article establishes how a membership association, following shared and intersecting strategies around competency and professional recognition frameworks, extends research management and administration (RMA) professionalization. Computer-mediated design using asynchronous sources provided data for thematic, narrative analysis within an…