Filling the Gap: Establishing an Undergraduate Program in Research Administration and Management

Nationally and internationally, research administrators and managers provide a backbone that supports research, scholarship, and service at universities, industry, government, and not-for-profit organizations. These individuals are key to achieving critical outcomes, including technical innovation and improvement in the quality of life. Despite their important role, there is no complete, formal, recognized career path for the thousands of individuals who have a version of “research administrator” as their title.

The current lack of recognized career pathways at the undergraduate level dictates that: 1) few individuals aspire to become research administrators when they enter a two- or four-year college or university because they are unaware that it is a career option; 2) individuals enter the profession with little or no foundation for managing highly complex legal and regulatory issues; and 3) entering research administrators must be trained on the job in the full range of complex issues, rules, processes and procedures, and expectations that require many years of experience to master. This project “Filling the Gap” with 38 U.S.

University participants, two community colleges and three African universities will design, develop, and implement a credit-bearing modular curriculum for adoption by institutions as stand-alone micro-credentials, as a for-credit credential, or incorporated into curriculum as part of a research administration concentration or minor. Online classes will be supplemented by existing university courses like technical writing, accounting, and communication.

At the completion of the project, the curriculum will be available to any university in the U.S and abroad. The outcome of the program will be a pipeline for a skilled workforce in research administration and grants management.

The goal of the “Filling the Gap” program is to fill a critical gap in the development of research administration professionals by creating a for-credit curriculum in research administration and management for undergraduate students in the United States and at three universities in South Africa and Namibia during the project period. This will provide a viable professional career option that is not available at any university or community college in the country.

To achieve this goal, credit-bearing modular courses will be created for adoption by two- and four-year institutions as stand-alone micro-credentials, as a for-credit credential, or incorporated into curriculum as part of a research administration concentration or minor. Online classes will be supplemented by existing university courses like technical writing, accounting, and communication.

The three project objectives are:

1.To develop a research administration curriculum that forms the basis for an undergraduate minor and concentration using stackable and micro-credentials that can be adopted by two-year and four-year institutions of higher education nationwide;

2.To develop a marketing toolkit for promoting this newly formalized career path in research administration to both universities and students, thereby recruiting a more diverse workforce: and

3.To provide a guide on promising practices for recruitment and retention of students, including mentoring, experiential learning opportunities, and other support programs.

A formal assessment will be conducted throughout the program to assess the viability of the curriculum and the success of the implementation. If needed, changes will be made by the developers before it is available to all universities. The outcome of the program will be a pipeline for a skilled workforce in research administration and grants management.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.