Jan/Feb 2024 NCURA Magazine

JAN/FEB 2024

NCURA

ELECTRONIC-ONLY ISSUE VOLUME 56, NO. 1

MAGAZINE

The Many Faces of

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Growing Your Team Through Leadership Improving Post-award Compliance Through Pre-award Activities Promoting a Culture of Self Care Published by The National Council of University Research Administrators

- Increase my funding f - Improve my SPO S

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FEATURES Leadership in Research Administration: A Different Approach

By Jessica McDonough and Jeff Derr .................................................5

Open Door Leadership: Prioritizing Opportunities for Others

By Robyn Remotigue and Anthony Ventimiglia ...............................42

Improving Post-award Compliance Through Pre-award Activities

By Morakinyo A.O. Kuti..................................................................8

Research Administration in Africa: The Many Facets

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Leadership-Centric Management for Research Administration Compliance: An Evolving Mindset

By Tanya M. Blackwell....................................................................11

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Research Administration in Asia Pacific: Leadership and Research Management in India

By Savita Ayyar .............................................................................15 Growing Your Team through Leadership

By Charles Bartunek .....................................................................20 NSF OIG Corner: What’s the Plan for FY 2024?

By Lisa Vonder Haar .....................................................................22

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Departmental Research Administrators: Leaders in Their Own Right

By Benita Bazemore-Cook .............................................................23

of Leadership in Research Administration—Perspectives from West Africa

By Beatrice Sakyibea Biney-Nyamekye and Rosemarie Terez-Santos.....47 Inclusion Initiatives: The Principles of Leadership for Research Administrators in the DEIB Era

By Sybile Bahiya...........................................................................50 Research Administration in Europe: Orchestrating Innovation FARIA’s Collaborative Vision and Leadership Approach

By Jérôme Rickmann and Mari Olafson Lundemo...........................52 Self Care For the Research Administrator: What’s in Your Toolbox? Promoting a Culture of Self Care in Research Administration

By Nelson Seilhan .........................................................................54 Why Should IRBs Report Protocol Data Accurately in the IRB Registry?

By Michael Stidham......................................................................58

Navigating Research Administration

By Rashonda Harris ......................................................................25 Research Administration in the Middle East and North Africa: The Art & Science of Leadership

By Hani Hassan............................................................................29

NCURA NEWS President’s Message ....................................................................3 Work Smart ..................................................................................9

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Effective Project Support for International Research Collaboration

By Helen Coskeran and Philip Cola ................................................31

Board Update ............................................................................10 2024 FRA/PRA Conferences ....................................................18 Notable Practices......................................................................48

The Many Faces of Leadership—Metrics & Systems

By Pamela Ray..............................................................................35

RA Training Programs Compilation Report ............................53 2024 Board of Directors and Committees ..............................56

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Expanding Horizons: The Mustang Mentoring Program Experience

By Sarah Romack ..........................................................................38 The Art of Leadership in Research Administration

By Angela Wishon.........................................................................40

Training Tips..............................................................................60 Regional Corner ........................................................................62 Spotlight on Research ..............................................................66 Calendar of Events..................................................Back Cover

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NCURA MAGAZINE

VOLUME 56, NO. 1

THE MANY FACES OF LEADERSHIP IN THIS ISSUE: The charge to this issue’s authors was to write about “the many faces of leadership,” and they did not disappoint.

The articles cover a full gamut of perspectives provided across positions, types of institutions, and years in the profession. While the articles look at what skills define leaders in specific research administration situations, the insights they offer are not limited by those situations. By the time I was done reading, I felt like I had been immersed in a primer on what it means to be a leader in which research administration was the theme that held it together. It was, in a word, affirming.

These are a few statements that stood out to me as being both highly focused on what we need to be aware of as research administrators but also having universal truths that we can apply anywhere:

• Jessica McDonough and Jeff Derr: “Leaders must prepare and care for themselves to best support their team.” (pg. 5) • Tanya Blackwell: “Managers are process-centric, focusing on what is…

Leaders are people-centric and focus on what could be.” (pg. 14) • Jérôme Richmann and Mari Olafson Lundemo: “Central to our leadership philosophy is fostering a culture of collaboration.” (pg. 54) A positive coincidence that the NCURA Magazine editors chose “the many faces of leadership” to be the theme of this issue is NCURA publishing The Soft Stuff is the Hard Stuff: The Challenge of Management and Leadership.

The authors of this new resource, who are both former NCURA Presidents, identified the top “soft skill” they recommend leaders develop. Kim Moreland offered that “Leadership isn’t easy…and civility is its foundation.”

Stephen Hansen had a somewhat parallel opinion, that “the first soft skill to develop is kindness.”

As you read these articles and consider ways to build and practice your leadership skills in your roles at your institutions and within your day-to-day situations, consider the many avenues NCURA already provides to learn (such as mentoring programs, ELP, publications) and practice (such as committees and elected offices at either the regional or national levels).

Are you one of the “many faces of leadership in research administration?”

Yes, you are. N Martin B. Williams is the Grant and Compliance Manager at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Engineering. He has developed and led research administration operations in predominantly undergraduate institutions for more than 25 years. Martin is a Co-Editor of NCURA Magazine, a former member of several national and regional committees, and a former regional officer. He can be reached at Martin.Williams@vaughn.edu.

SENIOR EDITOR

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Angela Wishon Prisma Health

Marc Schiffman NCURA

CO-EDITORS

COPY EDITORS

Tolise Dailey Duke University School of Medicine

Beth Jager Claremont McKenna College

Kathleen Halley-Octa Attain Partners

Paulo Loonin Duke University School of Medicine

Martin Williams Vaughn College of Aeronautics & Technology

Kelly Millsaps University of North Georgia Kasey Schubert Tufts University

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Career Development Lamar Oglesby Rutgers University Clinical/Medical Christina Stanger MedStar Health Research Institute Collaborators Lisa Mosley Yale University Compliance Jeff Seo Northeastern University Kairi Williams University of California, Berkeley Contracting Charles Bartunek Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Jill Frankenfield University of Maryland, Baltimore Departmental Research Administration Kelly Andringa University of Iowa Alesia El Ali University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Sheleza Mohamed American Heart Association Laneika Musalini Columbus State University Financial Research Administration Erin Bailey University at Buffalo Clinical and Translational Science Institute Albana Cejne Princeton University Global - Africa Josephine Amuron African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation Global - Asia Pacific Bella Blaher University of Melbourne Global - Europe Jérôme Rickmann Aalto University Nicolas Schulthess Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Interested in contributing an article?

Visit www.ncura.edu/PublicationsStore/ NCURAMagazine/Submissions.aspx

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Global - Middle East Kathleen Furr New York University Abu Dhabi Global - U.S. MC Gaisbauer University of California, San Francisco Christopher Medalis School for International Training Pre-Award Bruxanne El-Kammash University of Chicago Katherine Kissmann Texas A&M University Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions Michelle Gooding Barry University Shuna McMichael Occidental College Research Development Camille Coley University of San Francisco Self-Care Kristen Massey University of Tennessee Minessa Konecky Minessa InK Senior Administrator Lisa Nichols University of Michigan Lindsey Spangler Duke University School of Medicine Spotlight on Research Derek Brown Stanford University Systems/Data/Intelligence Thomas Spencer University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Lisa Stroud University of Florida Work Smart Hagan Walker Prisma Health Young Professionals Carol Bitzinger Ohio State University Katie Gomez Southern Utah University

The NCURA Magazine accepts advertisements for products and services pertinent to university research administration. In addition, display advertisements (including those for position openings) will also be published. The minimum rate is $1,000.

Advertisements and articles should not be construed as official endorsements by NCURA. For additional information on advertising or changes in address, please contact: National Council of University Research Administrators 1015 18th Street, NW, Suite 901 Washington, DC 20036 www.ncura.edu To request permission to reprint material from the NCURA Magazine, please send your inquiry to Marc Schiffman at schiffman@ncura.edu and include the issue, name of article and where you are looking to reprint it. © 2024 National Council of University Research Administrators

MESSAGE FROM YOUR PRESIDENT

By Kris Monahan, NCURA President

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s I start the NCURA presidency in 2024, I am filled with enthusiasm, excitement, and hope for a successful and productive year. I am also in awe as I reflect on what NCURA has achieved in the last several years. We are a thriving and growing membership organization of more than 8,400 members from across the globe who work collegially to support and enhance the research enterprise.

I write to share my hopes for 2024 and invite each of you to take time to reflect on your own hopes and dreams in relation to these three questions: 1) What does being a research administrator mean to you? 2) How does NCURA impact your professional well-being?

3) How can you continue to advance your professional skills, knowledge, and networks to achieve your goals?

As I reflect on these questions myself, I know that being a research administrator is a large part of my identity. It isn’t just a job that I do, but it is a professional calling. I have a strong sense of belonging and derive deep meaning in my work as a research administrator. My hope is that research administration continues to be elevated to a mature, sought-after, inclusive profession and that NCURA can help ensure that all individuals find a sense of belonging and meaning in their work and in NCURA. NCURA has been a lifeline to me in my professional life. The knowledge, deep connections, and friendships that I developed have contributed to my ability to be fulfilled and effective in my work. This is especially true for the many years that I worked as a one-person office. Once I found NCURA, I was no longer working in isolation and the professional connections helped me grow professionally and personally. Without NCURA’s network, professional development offerings, publications, and contacts, I simply might have given up when things were difficult.

I am still learning, growing, and expanding my skills and networks with NCURA. The free webinar series offered by the Select Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has provided new and valued perspectives for me and so many of our members. I have still not participated in every volunteer position available, and I definitely have many more people to meet. I am grateful that with an NCURA membership, I can learn and grow every day with other research administrators.

In the coming year, I am looking forward to working with the NCURA staff, board, committees, volunteers, and membership to enhance NCURA’s offerings and to further position NCURA as a global leader for professional development of the research administration community. My hope for 2024 is that you take advantage of all that NCURA has to offer through professional development offerings, resources, networking, and volunteer opportunities to fulfill your own professional well-being. I also hope you find ways to give and share your talents with the rest of the NCURA membership to build a community of unity and belonging. N Warm Regards

Kris A. Monahan, PhD, is the 2024 NCURA President and serves as Senior Director, Sponsored Projects and Research Compliance at Providence College. She can be reached at kmonaha6@providence.edu.

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A Guide to Effective Strategies and Recommended Practices

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he research management ecosystem is complex and diverse with multiple stakeholders supporting the research infrastructure.

NCURA’s comprehensive resource can help to support your team and partner offices across your institution. It covers the full range of issues impacting the grant lifecycle with more than 20 chapters including: • Research Compliance • Subawards • Audits • Export Controls • Administering Contracts • Sponsored Research Operations Assessment • Pre-Award Administration • Intellectual Property & Data Rights • F&A Costs • Regulatory Environment • Communications • Organizational Models • Post-Award Administration • Special Issues for Academic Medical Centers • Special Issues for Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) • Training & Education • Staff and Leadership Development

By the Numbers • 1100 index references • 40 articles added over the past year • 21 chapters • Updated 4 times a year • 1 low price

With today’s remote work environment this comprehensive P DF resource can be shared with your institution colleagues.

Recent Articles Include: • Evaluating the Impact of Internal Submission Deadline Policy on Grant Proposal Success • Preparing for and Surviving an Audit: Helpful Tips • When Did You Say Your Proposal Was Due? Working on Short Deadlines • Defining and Documenting Financial Compliance for Complex Costs • Troublesome Clauses: What to Look for and How to Resolve Them • Rewards of a Two-Part Subrecipient Risk Assessment • Proposal Resubmission: Overcoming Rejection • Mitigating Audit Risk at Small Institutions • Fundamentals of Federal Contract Negotiation • Managing Foreign Subawards from Proposal to Closeout • How to Reduce Administrative Burden in Effort Reporting • Strategies for Increasing Indirect Cost Recovery with NonFederal Sponsors • A Guide to Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs) • Building Research Administration Community Through Service • Turning Off Turnover - The Use of a Progression Plan to Attract and Retain Employees

www.ncura.edu/Publications/SponsoredResearchSubscription.aspx

Leadership in Research Administration

A Different Approach

By Jessica McDonough and Jeff Derr

hat does leadership in our profession of research administration look like? It depends! Each circumstance, institution, and situation likely requires a different combinations of qualities from a leader. Are you the person who initiates ideas? Are you an expert executor with any task put in front of you? Will you make tough decisions? What is your approach to teamwork? A leader in research administration can encompass multiple different skill sets; there is not a “one size fits all” way to lead in our world. Through our experiences, research, conversations, and reflections we have found the path to becoming a successful leader begins with knowing yourself.

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Have you heard people refer to the oxygen mask analogy? It is the one used on an airplane during the pre-flight instruction announcements. The rule: If an airplane cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will automatically fall in front of passengers, place your mask on yourself before trying to help others. Why? It is because you are best to assist others when you ensure that you, yourself, are taken care of. This method also applies to leading research administrators. Leaders must prepare and care for themselves to best support their team. We can also use the oxygen mask analogy proactively; we can prepare and practice instead of waiting for the emergency. The proactive technique we have had success using has three

key ingredients: relationships, mindsets, and preparedness. They are intertwined, often show up together, and circle back to each other.

Relationships-the core of research administration. Aristotle’s quote, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” is the starting point (Aristotle, ca. 350 B.C.E./1925). Knowing yourself, your preferences, how you like to operate, and the why behind the operation will be the framework for navigating other relationships. We are consistently the conduit between researchers, fellow staff, and sponsor contacts. What builds a great relationship? Does “it depend” on the situation? A firm foundation is built with trust. Researcher and educator Brené Brown NCURA Magazine

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emphasizes the importance of breaking down the concept of trust with her acronym BRAVING, which can help us build and sustain trust in our relationships. Plus, you know Research Administrators appreciate an acronym! These concepts are defined below and critical to building successful relationships to achieve our goals.

Boundaries-making clear what is okay and what is not okay, and why… think Uniform Guidance, Terms & Conditions, importance of providing clarity/evidence for our decisions.

Reliability-do what you say you will do. Be aware of your competencies and limitations so you do not over promise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities.

Accountability-You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends as soon as you are aware of the error.

Vault-You do not share information or experiences that are not yours to share…think PHI! Share examples/consequences without identifying people.

Integrity-Choosing courage over comfort; choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, or easy; and practicing your values, not just professing them-Collectively we are trusted to be good stewards of the funding provided for research.

Nonjudgement-asking questions and communicating without judgmentever tried explaining IDC or even what research administration is to your family?!

Generosity -Extending the most generous interpretation to the intentions, words, and actions of others-when we have to say “no,” we want others to understand why! (Brown 2023) We believe the bedrock of building that trust is a mindset of authenticity.

People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (Frei & Morriss, 2020). Some of the best relationships we have had with investigators and colleagues are not the ones where we answered every question correctly. The times we conversed and answered honestly, owned mistakes admitted we did not know the answer and needed to research institutional policy to provide a solution that resulted in the most positive outcomes. After all, who hasn’t made a typo in their projections?

Researcher Dr. Yvonna Lincoln writes “Authenticity criteria are criteria for determining the goodness, reliability, validity, and rigor of qualitative research” (2007). This quote resonated two-fold: our careers support research, and that criterion also sums up authenticity in research administration! Being authentic is being genuine and realizing that we do and will continue to make mistakes. An authentic leader is accountable when errors are made, reflects, reassesses, and provides alternative options for resolution; the result is a wiser leader for their team, their investigators, and their organization. Along with authenticity, transparency is key to effective communication, people prefer to work with individuals who are authentic and communicative. You know what you have there; that consistency builds trust and relationships (Erickson, 2021)! It is much tougher to navigate challenges when the relationship is with someone whose communication is ambiguous and inconsistent. Our mindset toward those we work with is critical; let us look at others’ strengths and find ways to utilize them, accentuate those strengths, and help the person be in a situation that allows them to thrive and succeed.

A colleague may not excel in communication and instead be an expert in attention to detail, leading to an expert reconciler! Observing without judgment helps identify strengths. When errors occur, observe and see how your colleague works before suggesting improvements. This allows you to assess, mitigate, and talk through a solution to avoid blame and judgment; and builds trust.

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Last but certainly not least is preparedness-does one ever feel fully prepared in the world of research administration? It may be second nature for us to have CFRs, organizational policies, and sponsor requirements memorized, and regardless of our tenure in research administration, there will still be questions and situations we have not experienced and need time to offer solutions. Approaching leadership with the right frame of mind is key. Additionally, recognizing that leadership is not equivalent to supervision will help keep you prepared!

Positional titles can project leadership, but the actions, positive influences, efforts, and results live out leadership.

Leadership in research administration is you! Wherever you are in your career, you can use your positive influence to lead and grow teams and better your organization as a whole. Like the research we support, we are all a work in progress; your self-awareness and earnest effort will shape you into a leader who makes a difference. We hope you find benefits in applying relationships, mindset, and preparedness to your role as a leader. N

“An authentic leader Is accountable when errors are made, reflects, reassesses, and provides alternative options for resolution; the result is a wiser leader for their team, their investigators, and their organization.

”

References Aristotle. (1925). Nichomachean ethics: Book II. (W.D. Ross, Trans.). The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html (Original work published 350 B.C.E) Brown, B. (2023, November 14). Dare to lead the braving inventory. https://brenebrown.com/resources/the-braving-inventory Frei, F. X., & Morriss, A. (2021, August 31). Everything starts with trust. Harvard BusinessReview. https://hbr.org/2020/05/begin-with-trust Lincoln, Y.S. (2007). Authenticity Criteria. In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, G. Ritzer (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosa076 Sue Erickson (2021) Communication in a Crisis and the Importance of Authenticity and Transparency, Journal of Library Administration, 61:4, 476- 483, DOI: 10.1080/01930826.2021.1906556 Jessica McDonough is an award manager at Yale University.

She has more than 15 years of experience in research administration including grant accounting and award management as well as subaward coordination. She can be reached at jessica.mcdonough@yale.edu.

Jeff Derr is a Specialist Leader at Attain Partners. He has previously held positions at Harvard and Cal Tech and has worked in research administration since 2011. He can be reached at jrderr@attainpartners.com.

Improving Post-award Compliance Through Pre-award Activities

By Morakinyo A.O. Kuti

Traditionally, post-award research administrators have been responsible for ensuring institutional compliance with federal regulations and guidelines. These administrators review requests for use of federal funds for purchases of goods and services to confirm that they are allowable by sponsors’ guidelines. In conjunction with project staff, they examine these requests for allowability based on the sponsors’ rules. The review process can sometimes cause frustration and unnecessary delays while post-award administrators validate the requests. In this article, I recommend ways in which post-award compliance can be much more efficient and the project more likely to succeed if certain aspects of allowability are incorporated in the proposal development process.

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entral State University (CSU) utilizes a proposal transmittal form as a means of guiding proposal developers to meet compliance requirements if the project is funded. The transmittal form is completed by the proposal developer and must be approved by appropriate supervisors and the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (which provides both pre- and post-award support) before all proposals are submitted to external funding entities. The form requires information that post-award administrators must possess when the proposal is funded to satisfy funding agency and Uniform Guidance requirements regarding project-related expenditures (2020).

Time and Effort Proposal developers must indicate on the transmittal form how their efforts are allocated. They must list all their current projects, including universityfunded activities, how much effort is allocated to each activity, project duration, and source of funding for each. Validation of the effort distribution during the proposal development phase should mitigate allocation issues when the project is funded.

Conflict of Interest All CSU employees are required to complete the annual conflict of interest (COI) disclosure form. Consequently, proposal writers must include the COI disclosure completion date on the transmittal form. Inclusion of the COI verification in the pre-award stage removes the burden from post-award administrators.

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WORK SMART

Cost Sharing or Matching If a proposal developer is requesting cost share or matching funds, the organization, fund number, and accounting lines where the matching costs or cost share will be allocated must be stated on the transmittal form. The head of the cost unit must indicate approval of the cost allocation in writing. Subsequently, post-award administrators will have this information during the project setup phase and when preparing financial reports.

Compensation for Personal Services Ensuring accurate compensation is perhaps the most important aspect of research administration. Project personnel should be fully compensated for their efforts and the university must ensure that compensation adheres to funding agency guidelines and internal policies and procedures. The fundamental items for compensation decisions are ensuring that the proposal utilizes institutional base salaries for all employees, specifies the period of performance, indicates whether effort will be compensated through direct payment, release time, or supplemental salary. Proposal writers must explicitly describe the applicable payment arrangement on the transmittal form. Requests for supplemental salary and release time must be approved by the head of the academic unit for faculty members to avoid implementation challenges if the project is funded.

Student Research CSU is a predominantly undergraduate institution that strongly encourages students to participate in research with faculty members. Proposal developers must indicate on the transmittal form if students are included in the proposed project and provide responsible conduct of research training before the project starts.

Subrecipient Agreements Like many other institutions, CSU has moved a significant portion of subrecipient monitoring to the pre-award phase. Potential awardees must provide certain financial documents and assurances to be included in the submission to external funding agencies. Unfortunately, we have had instances where organizations included in the proposal could not meet the internal control standards required by public agencies during the award negotiating process, which led to changes in the project.

Other aspects of compliance that can be addressed during the pre-award phase include human subjects research, animal care and use, suspension and debarment, and prior performance of project directors and others.

Using the pre-award process to improve compliance is particularly effective if pre- and post-award research administrators work in a combined office. This change resulted in a significant improvement in faculty satisfaction with the quality of customer service when we adopted the process at CSU because they could rely on consistent information, a reduction in the number of questions, and fewer processing delays. N

Reference Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principals, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, 2 C.F.R. § 200 (2020). www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part200#subpart-E.

Empowering the Unassuming Leader

By Claire Stam

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esearch administrators lead in a variety of ways. Pre-award coordinators lead Principal Investigators (PIs) through the process of compiling responsive applications, while postaward coordinators lead teams through the process of compliant funds management. However, in the research administration world, how do we really define a “leader?” For those working in the profession without a downline of direct reports, how is leadership demonstrated and developed?

Assess leadership opportunities within and outside the workplace.

If you do not directly manage employees, understand that you gain valuable and credible experience as a leader of teams by guiding them through the development and submission of complex applications to sponsors with nitpicky requirements. If you desire professional mobility and conventional leadership roles, gain experience by chairing a committee or advisory board. Build leadership skills through non-profit organizations or NCURA by serving on committees, boards of directors, or leading special projects. Highlight these experiences, marketable skills, and successes on your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Once you identify opportunities to lead, gauge your leadership style(s). While many of us understand how we present as leaders, consider refreshing your perspective by utilizing one of the many free online tools designed to evaluate leadership characteristics. Are you an authoritarian, leading with control to manage situations that pose significant risk? Perhaps you lead with a democratic lens, building a culture of respect in which creative input is encouraged. At times, you may exhibit a laissez-faire style, letting things run their course as you trust teams to adopt their own processes and make their own decisions. Remember that leadership can take various forms.

Authentic leaders are those who do not default to one style, but rather adjust their approach to fit the environment, tasks, and those whom they lead. No matter your position, always lead strategically and intentionally – it’s the research administrator way. N Dr. Claire Stam obtained her MBA, MPA, and PhD in educational leadership. She worked as a grants administrator for Clemson University from 2014-2022, and now serves as Director of the Prisma Health Addiction Medicine Center, where she oversees the development and execution of research and programmatic activities. She can be reached at claire.stam@prismahealth.org.

Morakinyo A.O. Kuti, Ph.D., CRA, CFRA, is the Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Director of 1890 Land Grant Programs at Central State University (OH). Dr. Kuti has secured over $20 million that has enhanced CSU’s infrastructure, enabled faculty research and scholarly activities, and provided students with scholarships and experiential learning opportunities. He can be reached at mkuti@centralstate.edu.

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Board Update

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t its last meeting in December 2023, NCURA's President, Bryony Wakefield, expressed gratitude to each board member for their dedicated service to the organization over the past year. Bryony also emphasized the value of each board member's contributions, acknowledging the extraordinary enthusiasm, passion, time, and thoughtfulness each member brought to board discussions. Special thanks were extended to outgoing board members concluding their terms (Tolise Dailey, Eric Morales, Kim Moreland, Jill Mortali, Dave Richardson, Matt Richter, and Hollie Schreiber) and to NCURA's Immediate Past President, Ara Tahmassian, and Secretary, Robyn Remotigue for sharing their time, knowledge and insights while also serving as executive officers of the organization. Additionally, individual NCURA staff members were recognized for their exceptional can-do approach and dedication to NCURA's mission. The efforts and distinct contributions of each play a crucial role in NCURA's continued success and growth.

NCURA’s Executive Director, Kathleen Larmett, shared exciting news about FRA/PRA 2024 registrations, noting the room block at the Hilton Hawaiian Village was nearing its capacity, necessitating the possibility of signing additional room blocks.

This update underscores each conference’s exceptional quality and appeal, reflecting the hard work and dedication of both the committees and the NCURA staff.

Key decisions and approvals were also a focal point of the latest meeting. The board approved the minutes from its previous November 2023 meeting, alongside the approval of NCURA's 2024 budget. In a significant step towards strengthening its committees, the board also approved various colleagues for committee membership across the Nominating and Leadership Development Committee (NLDC), Professional Development Committee (PDC), Financial Management Committee (FMC), Select Committees on Peer Review (SCPP) and Global Affairs (SCGA), and the Education Scholarship Fund Select Committee (ESFSC). The expansion of our committees not only brings new expertise and perspectives but also reinforces NCURA's commitment to diverse and dynamic leadership.

The Membership and Engagement Committee of the Select Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (SCDEI) presented an innovative rubric to identify research administrators at historically underserved colleges and universities. This initiative, aimed at awarding NCURA membership, is a testament to NCURA's dedication to inclusivity and engagement across the organization and the membership it serves.

The meeting concluded with President Wakefield reiterating thanks to the board for their invaluable contributions and the multitude of ways each member has made a significant difference through their service. The collective efforts of each continue to drive NCURA's mission forward, shaping a future that aligns with its core values and strategic goals.

Wishing you all the best in 2024.

Tim Schailey NCURA Treasurer Tim Schailey, MS, is the NCURA Treasurer, and Chair of the Financial Management Committee (FMC). He serves as Assistant Vice President, Research Support Services at Thomas Jefferson University. He can be reached at timothy.schailey@jefferson.edu.

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Leadership-Centric Management for Research Administration Compliance

An Evolving Mindset

By Tanya M. Blackwell

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efore I became a manager, I conflated the words “manager” and “leader,” believing the words were interchangeable.

This association presented a very self-limiting belief within me and left me with a disinterest in becoming a manager/leader because I did not feel properly equipped to be either. I had one previous experience in leading people that went horribly wrong. In the academic year of 2011– 2012, I served on the executive board as the president of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) at my son’s school. Despite serving with two vice presidents, a secretary, and a treasurer, I found myself unable to lead them. Ultimately, I ended up doing more than my share of the work and fulfilling responsibilities that fell under the others’ roles. From this experience, I walked away burnt out and frustrated, feeling inadequate to lead or manage others, and resigned myself to being a worker bee.

Then in 2018, an opportunity to serve my institution in a different capacity arose when my manager left and encouraged me to apply for her position.

I was hesitant at first, remembering this painful experience with the PTA. But, as advised, I put my name in the hat. While preparing for the interview, I was invigorated by the ideas that flooded my mind for how this new position would allow me to have a greater impact on our research administration by addressing the barriers and roadblocks that I experienced as an analyst. When the position was offered, I bravely accepted it with an open mind to learn how to manage the team. As I transitioned to my management/leadership position, I was pleased to discover that the terms manager and leader are not interchangeable, each having a very specific meaning and implication. Managers put the work first; leaders put

the people first. As one who cares deeply about people, I started to view management as a bad, dirty word and leadership as the holy grail. I intentionally focused my training and development on leadership, thinking I didn’t have to manage because the team would perform if led by a solid leader. I have been proud of my leadership efforts ever since.

Fast forward five years when my mind was completely blown with a new discovery. During the 2023 Leadership Summit at Seattle Children’s, the message was very clear: the best leaders also manage well and the best managers also lead effectively. In short, both management and leadership are necessary for an organization to reach its full potential. As I reflected on how the principles presented relate to leaders in research administration, I immediately recognized that the balancing of leadership and management has the greatest impact on our ability to support compliant research.

Leaders who fail to manage well in research administration leave the organization vulnerable to unfunded proposals and audit findings due to poor performance. Managers in research administration who fail to lead also put the institution at risk in other ways. In this article, we will look at the differences between management and leadership, the impact of having one without the other in research administration, and how combining management and leadership is the most effective way to support compliant research.

Differences Between Management and Leadership Unlike my younger self, most people recognize that there is a difference between management and leadership. Still, it’s worth discussing the differences between the two to lay the foundation for the rest of this article.

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Pulling from Dr. Bernard B. Banks (director, Doerr Institute for New Leaders, Rice University; former associate dean, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University), who delivered the keynote address at our 2023 Leadership Summit, I will share the key differences between the two, which helps illustrate why both are necessary for compliant research administration.

Management: Management is not a bad, dirty word. Management is necessary to create stability within an organization. Those who manage focus on the work because they understand the importance of the work to fulfilling the overall mission of the organization. In research administration, we must manage sponsored projects. Those with direct reports must manage their teams who are doing the work. Management is important because it provides an institution with order and consistency. Management is tough though! It requires one to be efficient and effective with the resources allocated to their team. Unfortunately, a common problem we see throughout the profession is under-resourced teams. Yet these teams are still expected to get all the work done, meet all of the metrics, and support all of the research. This is where management is critical. Managers are process-centric, focusing on what is. Effective management in research administration creates the internal controls necessary to ensure that we are good stewards of the sponsored research funds and trustworthy ushers of the advancements that come from research. Pre-award offices require management because proposal deadlines must be met while also adhering to the proposal guidelines and institutional, federal, and sponsor policies. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are tasked with protecting human subjects, a role that is critically important to safeguarding all stakeholders. Post-award research administrators must be managed to ensure that adequate internal controls are exhibited through compliant management of the funds and the research those dollars support. Responsibilities such as effort allocation and certification, subrecipient administration and monitoring, and ensuring expenses are allowable, allocable, and reasonable all support the need for strong management in research administration. Managers must address any gaps in performance that do not meet the needs of the organization or the expectations of those doing the work.

Leadership: What I love about leadership is that anyone can be a leader.

Leadership is not about having authority or being in charge, but rather having influence. Leaders move an organization through change towards a better future by establishing the direction, aligning the people, and inspiring the team. Leadership is also tough because human nature is resistant to change, despite change being the only constant. In research administration, rules and regulations, as well as policies and procedures are constantly changing. Organizations adopt new systems to do the same work better and faster; leadership is needed to ensure the team gets behind the change with clear direction and motivation. Leaders are people-centric and focus on what could be. Strong leadership challenges the status quo in an effective way, setting a new direction towards a visionary change. We see leadership in research administration in many ways. Research itself is innovative in nature and is constantly evolving our understanding of the world. Vannevar Bush, in his groundbreaking report to the President in 1945, identified science as the endless frontier that we as a country must continuously pursue. He writes, “We must strengthen the centers of basic research which are principally the colleges, universities, and research institutes. These institutions provide the environment which is most conducive to the creation of new scientific knowledge and least under pressure for immediate, tangible results… It is only the colleges, universities,

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and a few research institutes that devote most of their research efforts to expanding the frontiers of knowledge” (Bush, 1945).

As research administrators, we must be as innovative and committed to evolving as those who conduct the research that we support.

As research administrators, we must be as innovative and committed to evolving as those who conduct the research that we support. The question leaders must ask themselves is, “How can we get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow?” Perhaps the institution is striving towards R1 status, requiring leaders to inspire the team to do more with the same, or sometimes less. With a host of Electronic Research Administration (eRA) systems on the market, each offering different pros and cons, institutions may find that they outgrow a current system and need to adopt a new one. Leaders must lead that change from one system to the next to ensure the organization gets the return on their investment in the new system. There are some institutions that hire consulting firms to evaluate their research processes and provide recommendations for how they can be improved to attain future goals. Implementing changes after such an assessment requires strong leadership. Other changes, such as a restructuring from decentralized to centralized offices or increasing the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the institution are other ways in which leadership is paramount to an institution’s success.

Management without Leadership: PERFORM The imperative to perform is evidenced by things such as institute-wide goals and performance metrics. But what happens when the focus on management leaves out leadership? Management without leadership can lead to:

Disengaged, disconnected, and disenchanted teams Lack of ownership and/or buy-in n Inequities in workload distributions n Stagnancy and complacency n n

Leadership without Management: TRANSFORM As noted above, in some leadership development ideologies, it is better to be a leader than a manager. Those who have direct reports are encouraged to lead instead of managing so that they can push the organization, department, or team forward in a positive direction. However, in the context of research administration, this can be dangerous guidance for budding leaders. Leadership without management can lead to:

No regard for HOW the mission is achieved Unrealistic expectations due to an unawareness of the barriers to success n Chaos/lack of structure or alignment n Results that are neither predictable nor sustainable n Employee turnover n n

Management with Leadership: SUCCESS As Dr. Banks so eloquently expressed to us, “Management and leadership must be exercised continually” (personal communication, 2023). A research enterprise must both be stable and progressive. We must simultaneously get today’s work accomplished while preparing for tomorrow. When managed well, there is accountability, teams receive clear expectations, are adequately trained to meet those expectations, are given clear measurements for success in both outcomes and behavior, receive feedback that is “objective, timely, behaviorally-anchored, and devoid of judgement,” and understand the consequences for both meeting the standards and not meeting the standards (Banks, personal communication, 2023). In research administration, such management leads to stronger compliance throughout the life cycle of the award. When we balance that with effective leadership, we see teams moving towards a brighter future with clear direction and the ability to remain relevant despite constant change.

Management and leadership must be exercised continually.

and not viewing management as a bad word. Now, I understand that the differences between the two are what make both necessary to the success of my team and organization. The holy grail is balancing both so that compliant research can be supported, and we can continually pursue this endless frontier. N Reference Bush, V. (1945). Science—the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945.

National Science Foundation. www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm Tanya Blackwell is a Grants and Contracts Supervisor at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. She began as a research administrator at Georgia Tech and obtained her MS in Research Administration from Johns Hopkins University. She has held both departmental and central office roles and has found that the different perspectives have served her well. She aspires to have a lasting impact on the profession through service in NCURA. She can be reached at tanya.blackwell@seattlechildrens.org.

Throughout the years, my mindset as it relates to management and leadership has changed. I went from believing the terms were interchangeable and that I was incapable of doing either to learning that they are different

NEW RESOURCE! The requirements for documenting compensation charges to federal awards are complicated - we have a new resource to help!

This resource provides the framework for understanding the federal requirements for documenting compensation charges to federal awards and the complexities in meeting the requirements, as well as the implications and potential repercussions if not met.

Topics include: • Requirements of supporting salary charges • Determining what constitutes compensation • Documentation and Internal Controls • Issue and Risks • Common Audit Findings • Other considerations • Example of internal control framework for compensation compliance Get it here https://onlinelearning.ncura.edu/read-and-explore

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Research Administration in Asia Pacific

Leadership and Research Management in India

By Savita Ayyar

First IRMI Sharing session held at IISER Pune in April 2018, bringing together institutional leaders, researchers and research managers, for discussions on gaps in the Indian research ecosystem.

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n early 2007, I stepped off the train onto the platform at Kings Cross Station in London. A short walk that winter morning brought me to the Gibbs Building on Euston Road. I had previously been a Developmental Biologist at the University of Cambridge. On that morning, the train journey from Cambridge to London brought me into a very new world–that of the Wellcome Trust and facilitating biomedical research through enabling funding. My time at the Wellcome Trust was a remarkable learning experience and paved the way for much of what I have done professionally since then.

In 2010, I relocated from the UK to India, to take up a new role at the National Centre for

Biological Sciences (NCBS), a high-profile research institute in India. My initial task was to set up an office offering grant management support to scientists. This role evolved and I eventually found myself leading a team of colleagues with portfolios including Research Development, pre- and post-award grant management, philanthropic fundraising and research communications. However, research management was still at a very early stage in India and only a handful of institutions employed research managers and administrators (RMAs).

By 2018 I started working with the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance to create the India Research Management Initiative (IRMI), a new

1. Connecting the Dots Much of my work in India was initiated in collaboration with visionary institutional leaders, with some parts of the plan agreed upon. These projects eventually grew more detailed and were enriched through the work of others who joined in. My roles were varied - often simply to be the glue holding the diverse strands together through chaotic early stages.

RMAs function as a vital connecting link between the institutional leadership, researchers and other parts of the organization. It is essential for RMAs to be in tune with the leadership, to understand research priorities

network for research managers and administrators (RMAs) in India. It is now six years since the inception of IRMI and much has changed in India for RMAs. There are more research offices, research management roles and finally a small community of RMAs in India.

A lot has been said about leadership by eminent persona from across many sectors, including researchers. What does leadership mean from a research administrator’s perspective? I write this article to share some learnings on leadership, drawn from both my own experiences and the journeys of many others that I respect. I hope some of this will resonate with our RMA colleagues in other settings.

and strategy and to then provide a way to operationalise these concepts across the institution. This ensures that operations are guided by strategy and additionally provides a mechanism for insights from operations are relayed back to the senior management team. RMAs need to be aware of and respect the unique contributions of different departments and find ways of adding value through their own work. RMAs have to display leadership in being proactive and work as effective links across the organization.

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2. Embracing “Alone-ness” During my time at the Wellcome Trust, I was mentored by my colleagues and line managers. There was always great clarity in what was expected of us as professionals. However, as I took up leadership roles in India, this detailed set of instructions paved way for a more sketchy framework or outline. And there wasn’t always a line manager to turn to for guidance.

During these years, I realised that being a leader entails a certain degree of “alone-ness” where one does not have a tribe to lean on.

RMAs might often find themselves in a position where they are called upon to drive change. There are several examples of such situations, such as creating new funding schemes, developing a new Research Management (RM) service, setting up a new research office, developing a training program or building a network. Some parts of these tasks may have a framework ready at hand, many other aspects will require a new script to be written. Doing anything new involves risk. Our challenge as research managers is that our actions bring about change that impacts the lives and professional activities of other individuals. This makes risk taking in an RM context so much more challenging. An RMA leader therefore needs to accept that a path might need to be cleared and that there might be difficulties in ensuring that the final product serves the purpose.

“I have always encouraged my team members to be critical of our processes and feel empowered to suggest changes that improve our collective efforts.”

3. Whose Grant is it Anyway?

In many of my RM roles, I have worked to facilitate a working scientist’s grant funding from an external funding agency. A challenge that never really escapes us as RMAs is that a grant proposal is fundable only if the underlying scientific ideas are sound. However, as pre-award administrators, we hope that our work would make it easier for the researcher to compile a grant application and ultimately increase the chances of successful funding.

A balanced view is that effective RM support ensures that good research ideas have a high chance of success at funding agencies.

So, what does this mode of working mean for RM leaders? As RM leaders, we need to ensure that our processes are set optimally, for clear benefit to researchers, and that our teams work in a collegiate and collaborative manner with researchers while developing proposals. Active listening is key for pre-award grants administrators, as is the ability to balance assertiveness with empathy. An RM team leader needs to encourage the idea

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of developing trust-based collaborative relationships with all stakeholders.

We can then all genuinely celebrate funding successes and continually refine our approach for future bids.

4. Kaizen During my time at the Wellcome Trust, I was introduced to the concept of Kaizen and continuous improvement. Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy that concerns the processes that continuously improve operations and involve all employees. Over time, I have employed this concept and have interpreted Kaizen practically both as a mindset and practice. I have always encouraged my team members to be critical of our processes and feel empowered to suggest changes that improve our collective efforts. While leaders and managers take overall responsibility for process development, such a working culture ensures that all members of the team remain invested in the group’s success. Continuous improvement protects against stagnation and drift. I have also found this approach to be a valuable training tool for new joinees and often their fresh, unencumbered thinking has led to more effective ways of working for all of us.

5. Amplifying Best Practice When I began my work at NCBS, I did not have a peer group to lean on as RM was still at a very early stage in India. I tried to reach out to peers in other countries, particularly at institutions collaborating with NCBS. These experiences ultimately motivated me to set up the IRMI initiative, as a platform for Indian RMAs to gather and share their experiences.

As leaders, it is our responsibility to encourage our colleagues to share best practice with others in the field and absorb new developments from other institutions. This can be done in myriad ways, including speaking at webinars, attending, and presenting at conferences, developing training programs, exchange visits and writing about research management. Here, I would particularly like to thank NCURA Magazine for having provided a wonderful opportunity for Indian RMAs to share their stories and insights since 2020. This set of ten stories provides a beautiful written body of work on RM from India.

In the words of Peter Drucker, “Management is about doing things right, leadership is about doing the right things.” Leadership is as much about this clear vision, as it is about holding people together to work towards a common goal. While this can be a difficult balance to strike, a good dose of humour, complete faith in the cause, empathy and genuine concern for the team is the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down! N

The author extends a sincere thanks to mentors and colleagues at the Wellcome Trust, National Centre for Biological Sciences, DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance and members of the Indian and international research management community.

Savita Ayyar, PhD, is the Founder of Jaquaranda Tree, an independent consultancy service supporting academic institutions, funders, companies and other stakeholders with solutions to problems relating to research management. Since 2018, she has worked on behalf of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance to develop IRMI, the India Research Management Initiative (www.indiaalliance.org/IndiaResearch-Management-Initiative). She can be reached at sayyar@jaquarandatree.com.

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FINANCIAL RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION CONFERENCE Conference

Honolulu, Hawaii

March 18-19

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Lokahi

is the Hawaiian word for Unity, the theme of the 25th Anniversary of the Financial Research Administration (FRA) Conference at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii on March 18 & 19, 2024.

After a successful Annual Meeting in August 2023 in Washington, DC that focused on Inclusion, it felt like an easy transition to an FRA theme that continues to embrace the ideals of diversity and equity.

Unity, or “Lokahi” is the mindset that allows us to lead with YES. Lokahi sets the expectation that it is possible to be united and to have healthy teams even when we have opposing viewpoints, coming from different and diverse cultures and backgrounds, or working with others in-person or in a virtual environment.

Unity requires us to lead with intention and to be inclusive in our daily work.

Unity, as a value, must be prioritized if our goal is building a cohesive and productive team.

It requires that all research administrators, regardless of title or position, be engaged in building an in-person and/or virtual environment that promotes understanding, shared responsibility, and outcomes that focus on a common set of expectations.

Over the last few months, a dedicated team of colleagues from across the globe have developed an incredible program and we must acknowledge the hard work of the NCURA staff and the planning committee track chairs.

The program includes a full slate of educational offerings including concurrent sessions and discussion groups in the areas of accounting and finance; career development; clinical and medical education; costing; diversity, equity

Register today! www.ncura.edu/fra

Workshop Day

March 20

and inclusion; federal and financial compliance; global/international focus; and, sessions designed for primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). Your participation in this event, and the following day of workshops, will add additional viewpoints which will contribute to the learning objectives of this event and will foster Unity within the profession.

The keynote address will be provided

by Dr. Gilda Barabino, President and Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts.

The keynote entitled, “Aloha Spirit Unleashed: Building Unity through Inclusion,” will include experiences shared by Dr. Barabino of her leadership journey.

Dr. Barabino will also identify the framework for inclusion, belonging and the role that we all play in creating and sustaining unified supportive environments. We are excited to have Dr. Barabino join us as part of this Unity event.

Whether you have attended numerous NCURA learning events or if you are new to the profession, we extend a warm welcome to each of you to join us in Honolulu, Hawaii for the 25th Anniversary of FRA. We look forward to learning and networking with all of you and your colleagues from across the globe.

Conference Co-Chairs,

Vincent

Vincent Borleske Director, Engineering Research Administration Services, College of Engineering, University of Arizona

Denise

Denise Rouleau Director, Research Administration, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University

Pre-Award Research Administration Conference

Honolulu, Hawaii

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Workshops

March 20

Conference

March 21-22

Reimagining Resilience: Balance, Adaptability, and Growth NCURA and the PRA Planning Committee look forward to welcoming our colleagues to the exquisite and tropical island of Oahu, Hawaii for the 18th Annual Pre-Award Research Administration Conference. Wednesday, March 20th is the FRA/PRA shared workshop day, followed by the PRA conference on March 21st and 22nd.

Our overarching concept, “Redefining Resilience: Embracing Balance, Adaptability, and Growth,” mirrors the dynamic nature of research administration. It underscores the imperative for us to consistently adjust and prosper, ensuring optimal support for innovation, faculty, and our institutions.

This theme conveys that resilience transcends mere survival or endurance; it entails proactively turning challenges into avenues for personal, professional, and community advancement.

Keynote Address by Haunani Kane

Haunani Kane, a scientist, surfer, and voyager hailing from Kailua, Oahu, currently serves as an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her life is shaped by the principles and rich heritage of her ancestors. By utilizing the ocean as her classroom, the sky as her blackboard, and the islands as exemplars of sustainable living, Haunani seamlessly merges observation and traditional knowledge, fostering a worldview that highlights commonalities rather than disparities between Western and indigenous sciences.

We look forward to an inspirational, warm and thought-provoking talk about resilience and balance by Haunani Kane.

Program Tracks

The program comprises numerous enlightening and captivating sessions and discussion groups. Aligned with our theme of “Redefining Resilience: Embracing Balance, Adaptability, and Growth,” these sessions cover a range of topics, including change management, conscious leadership, career development, AI, research security, and research misconduct. These sessions are designed to stimulate thought about maintaining resilience in times of change. The federal track this year surpasses expectations, offering a wealth of unique sessions that go beyond the usual topics and sponsors. With over 100 sessions tailored to the field of research administration, there’s ample opportunity to explore and gain valuable insights.

“Paradise”: Waikiki Beach, Oahu, Hawaii

While visiting Hawaii, make sure to explore its breathtaking landscapes, from the volcanic wonders to idyllic beaches of Oahu. Experience the vibrant local culture through the traditional hula performances at the Luau hosted at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, indulge in delicious Hawaiian cuisine, and take part in the water activities like snorkeling and surfing. Don’t miss the chance to witness a mesmerizing sunset against the Pacific Ocean backdrop and consider exploring historical sites like Pearl Harbor. Embrace the aloha spirit and enjoy a unique blend of nature and culture that Hawaii has to offer!

Discounted tickets offered for the Luau here | Learn more and register here

GROWING Your Team through Leadership

By Charles Bartunek

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f research administration is an occupational niche, working within an institution’s contracts office is a niche within that niche, if not even smaller in stature. One look at the offerings at the Annual Meeting, or at any of the separate Regional Meetings (including that of my very own Region 2), and you’ll see comparatively few sessions directed solely to contract negotiations or language. That is not to say that we are underappreciated by our brethren in the post-award or compliance offices, but that our role in the lifecycle of a research project is much more fleeting than that of other groups. However, the terms to which we agree will have long-reaching effects that will impact and, in many cases, tie the hands of dozens of institutional representatives, so it is vital that they be as coordinated as possible with institutional guidelines.

Those of you who toil in the world of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and AAHRPP (Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs) language and multi-party collaboration agreements know that our lives are rarely straightforward. Making our efforts even more challenging is that unlike in the ‘formal’ practice of

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contracts law, we rarely have any case law upon which we can rely.

Consequently, we operate smack dab in the “It Depends” mantra of our profession, asking questions and unpacking scenarios until we’ve reached a point where we think we have an identifiable path forward. Even still, there are countless ever-changing guidelines and rubrics governing our activities that are almost impossible to fully ascertain on a real-time basis.

It is this overwhelming breadth of information that affords our contractual colleagues multiple opportunities to become leaders regardless of their position within their institution’s hierarchy. My team is made up of countless high performers with whom I would trust any high-profile agreement.

However, if a question arises with respect to a Material Transfer Agreement, I know that one of my teammates is best equipped to answer, and I regularly refer my colleagues to him even if they have come to me asking for my input. Others have proficiency when it comes to sorting out multisite registries, or parsing out the types of work product under natural history studies, or other topics we regularly encounter. None of them have campaigned or otherwise made declarative statements telling the world that they are the unquestioned expert in that specific area; they’ve simply

shown a competence in their work and a willingness to assist others with their own agreements. The end result is that they are looked at as a leader despite not necessarily having a commensurate title in their email signature.

Those in actual leadership positions can’t just sit back and reap the benefits of their subordinates, though it is often an enticing proposition.

To truly be an effective leader, especially in the contracts realm, one needs to be proactive and continuously mindful of several tenets that, when followed, should result in success.

Be Comfortable Admitting That You Don’t Know Everything A large misconception is that people in supervisory positions are omniscient, and that often can result in leaders feeling the pressure to become well-versed in each and every nugget of information that’s even remotely relevant to their job. As mentioned earlier, the scope of everything affecting a contract is always shifting. When we onboard someone, one of the first things we tell our new hire is that they will never reach the end of their learning curve, and we’re not expecting them to do so. I’ll then state quite bluntly that I don’t and won’t know everything either, but, in such situations, I can evaluate the issue and advise as to who may be able to best assist.

In addition to (I hope) making teammates feel more comfortable in bringing me questions without fear of judgment, this also serves as a way to permit my colleagues opportunities to show their own expertise and improve as negotiators. I also am not usually operating in the negotiating weeds, so it would be foolhardy for me to think that I am aware of every single nuance of our negotiation activities. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, being honest with this level of self-awareness helps to remove the assumption that I’m lording from on high from my ivory tower. This, in turn, lends itself to developing a stronger rapport with my colleagues and more easily opening lines of communication.

Support, Don’t Stifle, Your Teammates’ Growth Among the many reasons why I enjoy working within research administration, near the top of the list is that, by and large, it’s not adversarial. A contract negotiation may turn somewhat contentious, but ultimately each party is working towards the same end game; no one is looking to win.

This ethos should extend to relationships within your group as well.

The hallmark of an effective leader is one who provides an environment for their subordinates to flourish, and who won’t feel threatened if one of their colleagues becomes the team’s subject matter expert instead of themselves. Having this be the goal is a mutually beneficial proposition: The team benefits through the excellent work of their colleague, reflecting positively on the leader, and the individual continues their professional development. Watching a colleague grow in their role and gain confidence is one of the best parts of my job, but I recognize that one of my primary responsibilities is to support this progression in the first place.

Consequently, it is important for me to make the effort to interact with my teammates and always be on the lookout for gaps in training or similar resources that may be preventing someone from truly reaching their full capabilities. Obviously, the teammate needs to then put in their own effort to get there. However, my position mandates that I proactively facilitate the advancement of my colleagues and not be a passive observer throughout the process.

Don’t Resist Adapting Your Style Much as a good leader must be comfortable admitting that they don’t know everything, they must also be willing to acknowledge that they have

room for growth when it comes to their management style. As team membership and dynamics fluctuate, leaders must be flexible to adapt to the resultant changes, and not assume that the previous way of doing things will suffice moving forward. This requires regular check-ins to evaluate whether certain strategies and processes are working and having the self-awareness to identify opportunities for improvement due to their actions (or lack thereof).

When working within contracts, this could become apparent when you regularly encounter the same issue with your team negotiating language inconsistent with what you thought was a well-written, cogent reference document. Yes, there is always the chance that the fault lies with the team, but if the problem occurs consistently, perhaps you should look at how you presented the information. Additionally, leaders should take advantage of NCURA conferences and similar events to speak directly with their counterparts at other institutions and learn different tricks of the trade that may work with their own groups.

WATCHING A COLLEAGUE GROW IN THEIR ROLE AND GAIN CONFIDENCE IS ONE OF THE BEST PARTS OF MY JOB, BUT I RECOGNIZE THAT ONE OF MY PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES IS TO SUPPORT THIS PROGRESSION IN THE FIRST PLACE.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Above All Else, Check Your Ego at the Door The above three recommendations have a common theme: To be effective in their role, a leader can’t consider themselves immune to mistakes and flaws. Of course, a leader must have a certain amount of confidence in their abilities, but, if this confidence begins to manifest itself as an unchecked ego, disaster will ensue. Being oblivious to your room for growth will result in missed opportunities to improve your abilities, as, if you’re not always on the lookout for improvement, you won’t necessarily pick up on cues to enhance your abilities. And if you think your way is best, you will hesitate to recognize the skills of your subordinates, thereby stunting their growth and, more than likely, driving them away to greener pastures. As Winston Churchill put it, “Where there is great power, there is great responsibility.” However, these “great responsibilities” do not have to be as daunting as they may appear so long as the leader is willing to put in the effort to continue improving in the role. N Charles Bartunek, JD, Senior Director, Office of Collaborative and Corporate and Research Contracts, at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has thirteen years of research administration experience at non-profit research institutions and hospitals. He can be reached at bartunekc@chop.edu.

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NSF OIG CORNER What’s the Plan for FY 2024?

By Lisa Vonder Haar

The OIG Office of Audits provides independent, objective assessments of various aspects of NSF’s programs and operations. Each fiscal year, our Office of Audits publishes an annual work plan that highlights planned projects and projects we are monitoring. The plan contains audits mandated by legislation, as well as discretionary, risk-based audits of NSF’s programs, contracts, cooperative agreements, and grants to universities and other institutions. We audit NSF award recipients to detect improper spending or noncompliance with federal and NSF requirements.

We tailor each audit depending on an auditee’s unique risks. We also conduct internal audits of NSF’s programs to identify ways to improve systems and operations.

How do you decide which discretionary audits and reviews to include in the annual work plan?

We apply a risk-based approach to determine which audits, inspections, or reviews should be included in the plan. We also align our discretionary audits and reviews with NSF’s top management and performance challenges, which we identify each year per the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000. Since our discretionary audits and reviews are not mandated by legislation, we have the flexibility to address any emerging issues or to respond to requests from Congress or other stakeholders.

Are you planning audits of award recipients in FY 2024?

We plan to audit NSF award recipients at various universities, non-profits, and for-profit entities to detect improper spending or noncompliance with federal and NSF requirements. These audits may focus on areas such as internal controls, accounting systems, or incurred costs.

We also conduct audits to determine if NSF policies are being implemented and are effective. For example, we are planning to review compliance with NSF's harassment terms and conditions at selected NSF award recipients. This award term and condition, effective October 2018, requires award recipients to notify NSF of any findings of sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, or sexual assault regarding an NSF funded PI or co-PI. How do audits and reviews of NSF’s internal operations impact the recipient community?

Our audits and reviews of NSF’s internal operations help NSF meet its mission efficiently and efficiently. Changes that NSF makes to its policies and procedures based on our recommendations often affect recipients.

For example, because of our audits, NSF clarified its guidance on entertainment costs, participant support costs, and promotional items for EPSCoR-funded programs. Our planned internal audits and reviews for FY 2024 include audits of mid-scale projects, NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines Program, and NSF’s oversight of Industry University Cooperative Research Centers.

What about single audits?

Recipients that spend $750,000 or more a year in federal awards are required to obtain an annual independent financial audit, referred to as

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a “single audit.” We will review the quality of single audits of NSF award recipients for which NSF is the cognizant or oversight agency (generally defined as the audited entity’s predominant federal funding agency). We will also review other award recipients when we have concerns regarding the NSF-related information contained in their single audit reports. The purpose of our reviews is to determine whether the audits comply with federal requirements and professional audit standards.

Where can I find the Office of Audits’ annual work plans?

Our annual work plans, as well as our other reports and publications, are on our website at oig.nsf.gov.

To report research misconduct or other forms of fraud, waste, abuse, or whistleblower reprisal, please contact us by: • Web: oig.nsf.gov/contact/hotline • Anonymous Hotline: 1-800-428-2189 • Mail: 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22314 ATTN: OIG HOTLINE. • Questions about reporting?: Email: OIG@nsf.gov.

Learn more about whistleblower protections All NSF employees, contractors, subcontractors, awardees, and subawardees are protected from retaliation for making a protected disclosure. For additional information on whistleblower protections, please visit oig.nsf.gov/whistleblower.

Lisa Vonder Haar is NSF OIG’s chief of staff and congressional liaison. She started her federal career in 2002 at the Department of Interior OIG and joined NSF OIG in 2018. She can be reached at Lvonderh@nsf.gov.

Have a question or an idea for NSF OIG’s Corner?

Please contact us at OIGPublicAffairs@nsf.gov

Departmental Research Administrators

Leaders in Their Own Right

L

By Benita Bazemore-Cook

eadership and departmental research administration are not mutually exclusive. Research administrators have a vast array of opportunities to exhibit leadership and shape an institution’s compliance culture.

Departmental research administrators (DRAs) fill a vital role within departments, providing direct support to investigators and others and serving as a catalyst for information and processes across institutional units.

While providing service and guidance, the DRA encounters opportunities for leadership with investigators, other departmental research administrators, other units within the organization, and external collaborators.

Departmental research administrators are in a distinctive position to lead and guide research administration functions across their institutions. These leaders are uniquely positioned to collaborate with a broad range of groups and exhibit leadership. Providing support and guidance to investigators primarily allows departmental research administrators to function as leaders.

It takes confidence and leadership to provide guidance to investigators on matters related to grant awards and allowability or to enforce requirements and deadlines with pre-award submissions. Advising investigators on award issues and ensuring that the investigators have the complete information needed to ensure institutional compliance with sponsor guidelines is a leadership function. It takes leadership to embrace the key role that the administrator plays in providing guidance, ensuring compliance with sponsor and institutional regulations, and deciphering the diverse range of questions and requests that can arise in managing sponsored funds. This can mean responding in the negative to an investigator’s request or reporting instances of non-compliance. This surely requires leadership and a commitment to institutional compliance.

As research administration utilizes many institutional resources, departmental research administrators interact with different departments from payroll, human resources, capital equipment, finance, and audit. These collaborations provide opportunities to further enhance the departmental research administrator’s knowledge and increase the opportunities to provide feedback on resources, services, and policies within these areas and how they impact research—another opportunity for institutional leadership. Departmental research administrators are often the end users of institutional systems and can provide valuable feedback on policies, processes, and systems. This includes ongoing feedback and feedback during proposed changes, such as software and system transitions.

Departmental research administrators often become highly knowledgeable in certain areas of research administration and serve as subject matter experts. Whether providing guidance to investigators or other administrators, presenting at a training session, or helping to craft standard operating procedures and training manuals, departmental research administrators gain leadership skills by sharing knowledge. This can include presenting on a topic at an NCURA conference or at a campus research administration session. Departmental research administrators have this presentation experience in common with the investigators that they support and sponsored programs office officials with whom they collaborate.

Also, seasoned researcher administrators usually train and onboard new administrators, whether new to their department or the field. In this function, departmental research administrators lead and guide new administrators

through interacting with investigators and completing routine tasks such as preparing a grant application for submission or reviewing financials to present to the investigator. Displaying good habits and a cheerful outlook is critical to this onboarding process. Senior departmental research administrators should be thoughtful and patient and provide detailed reviews of policies and procedures to ensure that new administrators will be successful.

There should not be negative feedback or thoughts shared regarding investigators or other staff members; rather, there should be a sharing of best practices and effective communication methods and styles for investigators.

“Whether providing guidance to investigators or other administrators, presenting at a training session, or helping to craft standard operating procedures and training manuals, departmental research administrators gain leadership skills by sharing knowledge.”

Departmental research administrators often communicate and collaborate with external stakeholders as well. This may include other institutions when receiving or issuing subaward applications or awards. Communication with consultants and vendors is essential to ensure that contracts and purchasing agreements include the necessary information and that these agreements align with the grant award that will fund the work. Departmental administrators may sometimes speak with sponsors to ask questions or gain clarity on award terms and conditions. These activities will surely include other units, such as the purchasing department or the sponsored programs office team. Still, as the departmental research administrator often works closely with the investigator, their work may require communication with these external collaborators. They should exhibit leadership by accurately representing the institution’s position and ensuring compliance with institutional and sponsor guidelines.

Departmental research administrators make great contributions to the research culture of institutions and are vital to the success of research.

Their leadership ensures compliance with sponsor and institutional guidelines and is imperative to research success and growth. N References Baumgartel, H. (1957). Leadership style as a variable in research administration. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2(3), 344-360. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391003 Reardon, S. (2021). ‘We’re problem solvers’: research administrators offer guidance to working scientists. Nature, 595(7866), 321–322. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01829Benita L Bazemore-Cook, MA, Managing Grant and Contract Administrator at Oregon State University, leads a post-award team of administrators. She holds the CFRA certification and is interested in other certifications and in presenting at conferences. She can be reached at Benita.bazemorecook@oregonstate.edu.

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Research Administration

By Rashonda Harris

I

n the realm of research administration, leadership is not a one-size-fits-all concept. It takes on myriad forms, adapting to diverse contexts and shaping the direction and success of institutions and agencies. To unravel the essence of leadership in research administration, we must draw insights from various sources and explore the characteristics that define effective leaders, all within the theme of “the many faces of leadership.”

Leadership Traits: The Foundation of Effective Leadership

A fixed mold does not bind leadership in research administration; instead, it thrives on adaptable traits that can be acquired and refined over time. In his 2023 Forbes article titled, “How To Be An Effective Leader,” Kirt Linington emphasizes that leaders are not born but evolve through continuous growth and self-improvement. These qualities, pivotal for successful leaders, also resonate in research administrators, embodying the notion of “the many faces of leadership.”

Accountability lies at the core of leadership in research administration. Regardless of the outcome, effective leaders assume responsibility for their team’s performance, seamlessly blending praise for success and precise feedback for improvement.

Confidence is essential in motivating teams and building trust, irrespective of the multifaceted nature of research administration. Leaders must display unwavering poise and conviction, nurtured through practice and preparation.

Adaptability, a vital trait, acknowledges that plans and goals can shift unexpectedly in the ever-evolving research landscape.

Research administrators, like chameleons, embrace flexibility, fostering resourcefulness and problem-solving abilities.

Creativity is an essential facet of leadership for research administrators, allowing them to envision innovative solutions and alternative approaches to surmount research objectives. >>

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Empathy is a significant trait, especially for managers and supervisors in research administration. Leaders should empathize with their teams’ experiences, fostering an environment of collaboration amidst the many faces of research.

Focus aids research administrators in managing distractions while steadfastly pursuing their essential goals, demonstrating how leadership adjusts to their diverse roles.

Positivity, a motivating tool, characterizes influential leaders who consistently highlight the benefits of tasks and maintain a positive outlook, even when navigating challenges.

Risk-taking is integral to leadership across research administration’s diverse spectrum. Leaders make informed decisions in uncertain situations, an aptitude valuable in various roles.

Stability complements the drive for change, allowing leaders to maintain a sense of steadiness as they guide their teams through the dynamic research landscape.

Team-building skills are indispensable in research administration, where leaders often collaborate with diverse groups. Encouraging teamwork, inspiring contributions, and refining communication are pivotal in this multifaceted leadership.

Learning the Art of Leadership Leadership is a lifelong journey of growth and development, echoing the theme of “the many faces of leadership.” As illuminated in the Indeed article “Leadership Traits: 10 Top Qualities of Effective Leaders” by Krosel et al.

(2023), individuals can nurture their leadership traits by prioritizing learning and professional development. This proactive approach may encompass participation in training programs, like team-building seminars, to fine-tune leadership skills.

Adopting a leadership style aligned with one’s personality, industry, and goals remains vital amidst the diverse roles that research administrators assume. Leadership styles range from coaching to visionary approaches, emphasizing the adaptability of leadership across contexts.

Embracing additional organizational responsibilities offers research administrators opportunities to practice and enhance their leadership skills. Leaders often emerge when they volunteer for significant tasks or take on oversight roles, exemplifying the ever-changing faces of leadership.

Effective communication is a cornerstone of leadership, underpinning successful leadership in research administration’s many roles. Leaders must convey their mission and ideas clearly, actively listen, and constructively process feedback, emphasizing communication’s importance across the multifaceted landscape.

Mentorship emerges as a valuable resource for leadership development in research administration. Collaborating with mentors with advanced field experience can provide insights and guidance on effective leadership strategies, echoing the diversity of leadership scenarios.

The Impact of Leadership: Reflections and Consequences Understanding the impact of leadership is paramount, reflecting the theme of “the many faces of leadership.” As articulated in Miriam Campo’s 2014 article titled “Leadership and Research Administration,” leadership transcends personal gain. Effective leaders prioritize their teams’ well-being and growth, recognizing that the work produced mirrors employees’ engagement and contentment.

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“Effective communication is a cornerstone of leadership, underpinning successful leadership in research administration’s many roles.

Leaders must convey their mission and ideas clearly, actively listen, and constructively process feedback, emphasizing communication’s importance across the multifaceted landscape.”

Leadership, at its core, is selfless. Leaders focus on leaving a lasting, positive legacy rather than pursuing personal gains from organizations, epitomizing the various faces of leadership.

The genuine reflection of leadership is evident in an organization’s performance when the leader is absent. Healthy leadership fosters an environment where an organization can thrive independently of a specific leader, acknowledging the different facets of leadership that influence an organization’s journey.

Adapting to a Changing Landscape: The New Workforce The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the workplace landscape, ushering in remote work as the new norm. As employees prioritize personal values, including diversity, equity, inclusion, competitive pay, and flexibility, organizations must adapt to attract and retain talent effectively, aligning with the evolving faces of leadership.

Leadership in research administration is not a monolithic concept but a multifaceted one. Effective leaders in this field encompass various traits that adapt to various roles and situations. Prioritizing their teams’ well-being and the pursuit of organizational goals, leaders leave a positive impact on institutions and agencies. As the workforce evolves, research administrators must embrace the changing expectations of employees, embodying the ever-shifting faces of leadership. N

References Campo, M. A. (2014). Leadership and Research Administration. Research Management Review, 20(1). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1038832

Joubert, S. (2019, January 24). The 5 qualities all successful leaders have in common. Northeastern University Graduate Programs. https://graduate.northeastern.edu/resources/top-5leadership-qualities Krosel, A., Eads, A., Sherman, C., Birt, J., Murray, J.K., Herrity, J., Gafner, J., & Garcia, R. (2023, June 30). Leadership traits: 10 top qualities of effective leaders. Indeed. www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/top-leadership-traits Linington, K. (2023, January 11). How to be an effective leader. Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/01/11/how-to-be-an-effective-leader

Dr. Rashonda Harris, MBA, CRA, EdD, is a servant leader. She is the Founder and CEO of Purple Sheep Consulting and a Johns Hopkins Faculty member, teaching in the Masters for Research Administration program. She is a past National Board Member, a DRA Traveling workshop faculty member, a Region III, and a national recipient of the Distinguished Service Award. Rashonda is also a former member of the Presidential Taskforce on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and a former Region III DEI committee member. Rashonda is a current PDC member. She can be reached at Rharr122@jhu.edu.

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Research Administration in the Middle East and North Africa

The Art & Science of

LEADERSHIP

By Hani Hassan

L

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

eadership is perhaps one of the most Many have approached the question of leadcurrent topics of research and study ership as some sort of science, in a manner across the very many fields of proposing a very carefully calibrated and industry and education. When I quantifiable set of skills that, once attained performed a quick search on Goodreads in appropriate doses and applied in the using the search item “Leadership Books,” right circumstances and contexts, then I received 38,378 hits; and inputting the leadership arises. Many books and articles search item “Leadership” on Amazon books speak of the key skills required for leadergave me 60,000 results. I am not sure what ship, presenting an exhaustive checklist of such an immense range of hits indicates, but a sorts, the most common of which are: “Com—Lao Tzu cursory reading of some of the titles of these thoumunication Skills, Team Building, Interpersonal sands of books certainly indicates that leadership is Skills and Positive ‘can-do’ attitude” (Campo, 2014). addressed and tackled in so many professional and perThere is no doubt that such skills, in addition to other sonal contexts. Very broadly speaking, these numerous titles perhaps more nuanced qualities, are essential for good and address either the definition of leadership, the qualities of leadership, or constructive leadership; but good leadership cannot be boiled down to the steps and practices to attaining leadership. However, and despite this merely ticking the boxes on a checklist. Rather than speaking of leaderremarkable publication output on the topic, it is as if “leadership remains ship as either a science or an art, perhaps it is indeed more accurately a paradox,” and that is perhaps mostly due to the fact that “leadership, an organic coming together of both these aspects. Leadership may indeed after all, is an art, not a science” (Shinagel, 2013). be a set of observable skills that can be captured with some clearly articuBut what does it mean to say that leadership is an art rather than lated measuring techniques. And leadership is also the interplay of certain a science? And how would that translate into the art of leadership in qualities and character traits, much of which are not clearly captured within the rubric of any system of measurement. But above all, leadership research administration? is not merely a closed set of qualities identified in a certain spatial or temporal context but is more a mode of being that is fluid and ongoing, that is both steadfast and flexible, and that is much more akin to mentorship than it is to management.

Such an approach to the art and science of leadership is very relevant to the realm of research administration, where it would most certainly involve a certain science in seeking, identifying, and securing funding opportunities for faculty and staff; where preparing and reviewing grant applicants and reviewing the budgetary allocations relies on a rigor in

Leadership, after all,

is an art, not a science.

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communication, team building, and proactive leadership. But leadership in research administration is just as much an art as it is a science, for it is not simply the act of going through the motions to fulfill a set of tasks and meet performance indicators but is rather a translation of the very value system that one embraces, both within the professional context as well as outside of it. To be in a position of leadership in this sense means, perhaps above all, to be true to one’s own self and set of values, and to strive to translate these into the professional sphere and community. One’s values are not merely personal, but they participate in defining a leader as well as “the relationships a leader develops with staff, whether or not they are able to work collaboratively with others and how fair and equitable they are” (Ince-Greenaway, 2023). Translating such values as honesty, integrity, efficiency, loyalty, compassion, passion and respect, into one’s professional mode of being, into one’s behavior with and around others, not only draws others towards one as a ‘leader,’ but would also invite others to share the set of values in their own leadership style and approach.

Furthermore, leadership in this context also entails leading towards the overarching aims of the community and institution of which one is a member, championing its vision and goals, and participating in translating its mission statement into all projects and endeavors.

One cannot and does not lead in a vacuum, one leads as an organic component of a larger community. Leadership in this sense, as an art and a science, is not merely driven by a set of skills applied to a list of tasks, but also through a translation of the value system that one embodies through their actions and words. Such leadership helps promote the institutional values internally and translate them externally, and thus participates in materializing these values in the details of everyday life across the various offices and corridors of the organization. N

“Leadershiop...also

entails leading towards the overarching aims of the community and institution...”

References Campo, M. A. (2014). Leadership and Research Administration. Research Management Review, 20(1). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1038832.pdf

Ince-Greenaway, L. (2023, February 9). How To Master the Art Of Leadership. Brainz Magazine. www.brainzmagazine.com/post/how-to-master-the-art-of-leadership

Shinagel, M. (2013, July 3). The Paradox of Leadership. Division of Continuing Education.

Harvard University. https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/the-paradox-of-leadership

Hani Hassan is a full-time lecturer in the Philosophy Department and the Critical Humanities for the Liberal Arts (CHLA) program at the American University of Beirut. His current research interests include early Arab-Islamic philosophy, with particular focus on Al Kindi. Hani also serves as the director of the university’s US-Middle East Partnership Initiative (US-MEPI) Tomorrow’s Leaders program. He can be reached at Hh26@aub.edu.lb.

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Effective Project Support for International Research Collaboration

By Helen Coskeran and Philip Cola

I

nternational research projects typically involve collaboration between sites or countries. We have many sponsors that encourage and fund international research collaboration, such as the NIH Fogarty International Center in the USA, and Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) in the UK. If the collaboration is truthful, then all parties would be equally participating in the design of the project. However, typically, one organization plays a greater role. Drs. Helen Coskeran and Philip Cola analyzed ways to achieve more equitable collaborations.

Question: What was the aim of your research project?

Philip: We were trying to investigate opportunities for research administrators to contribute more to research projects and in this particular case, to contribute to how we design and create international research collaborations. We tried to do a case study between the UK and sites in Africa that would investigate growing research capacity between those two research sites. That was the problem of practice, that we have all these grant opportunities, we work on these things and still at the end of the day, the international collaboration is usually led by one group or another - generally where the funding comes from. Then from this broad problem of practice, we asked ourselves the following research questions: • What are the key factors that indicate effective project support for international research collaborations?

• What key factors help us support international research collaborations?

• What can individuals and organizations do during the project design set up and implementation phases to ensure factors that facilitate rather than hinder the management and sustainability of such partnerships?

Continuing with that, what methodologies did you deploy then to analyze these questions?

P: What was fun here was we had the opportunity to implement a mixed methods research design! We knew that we would have a relatively small sample size of people to talk with. We started with a qualitative inquiry or a discovery phase. Qualitative research is inductive. We interviewed nine stakeholders across people in the UK and Africa, where the research was going to be done and where the collaboration exists. Then we distributed a survey for the quantitative methods to the 37 group project managers. We collected 14 responses from those 37 individuals within this small population. Then we integrated those two data sets and triangulated the data to come up with our results.

Did you identify key factors for managing successful international research collaborations?

Helen: I was a project manager on one of these GCRF projects at the University of Leeds and teamed up with three other project managers to do the survey and interviews that Phil's just described.

P: We knew what our problem was, what our questions were, and we knew that we had the data for both qualitative and quantitative

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1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

research. However, in order to analyze that data appropriately, we wanted to put a framework around it. We framed the analysis around five key concepts that are common in the literature of phenomena that you generally would need or see historically in a research collaboration.

Equitable partnerships – the idea of building reciprocity and trust in order to establish a social network among these research sites.

Strengthening the capacity – this idea came from Helen's own lived experience, and specifically looked at the idea of building relational capacity as a precursor to positive impacts on teamwork and organizational support. We define this idea of relational capacity as building deep and meaningful bi-directional relationships with others.

Global networks – a critical concept if your goal was to set out to build an international collaboration. This concept relies on relationships of groups of people that share common goals and the desire to achieve collaborative predetermined goals and outcomes.

Interdisciplinarity – the involvement with all collaborators to create this richer environment. It's usually, or historically, been investigators that built the collaboration, and we're saying that you also need the project managers, the program managers, the research administrators, the grants people to be engaged in building collaboration with their partners. Think about it in this way, it's like submitting an IRB protocol or a protocol for ethics review. If the investigator and the study team just submits without ever trying to consult with the IRB office, they will get many more questions from the IRB to address in the future.

However, if they walk in to the IRB office at the onset and seek advice before creating the protocol, the IRB review is going to go much smoother. So same thing here in building international collaborations.

Wicked real-world problems - the relevant global challenges that such a research collaboration could impact. In other words, what wicked real-world problems of practice need us to come together to collaborate on, to start contributing evidence towards solution.

Was the term wicked something that you came up with?

P: No, some of the founders of our doctor of business administration program, faculty members Paul Salipante and John Aram, wrote articles about practitioner scholarship, and how real-world practitioners bring to life their lived experiences while trying to solve real world problems. They called it “real world wicked problems”, not just those things that a “yes” or “no” answer or a phone call could solve, but rather things that people have been working on for years and you have to spend years contributing evidence to get towards a solution.

What would be the key results from your research?

H: From the data, we found three major themes: 1. Organizational capacity and capabilities - All of the survey respondents had a UK lead with partners working in low middle income countries.

One of the themes, a lot of non-UK organizations didn't have the funds to have a fully functioning research office. They were often relying on researchers or academics to take care of some of the administration and finance tasks, which was not good on either side because the researchers in question obviously would prefer to spend their time on teaching and research and other things. And for the UK program managers, it was a source of frustration quite often because they weren't sure who to contact or who they were waiting on responses from.

2. Building and maintaining partnerships - The Global Challenges Research Fund was about equitable partnerships. However, the funding model and the timelines that the fund used were not conducive to equitable partnerships. It did not allow for in-depth conversations between the UK lead and the various partners between the initial and second stage proposal submission. This resulted in very little time for 32

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true co-creation between the partners with project design being driven by colleagues based in the global north. Other inequities would arise if the international partner was not used to working with UK universities.

Then lastly, communication was really key in building and maintaining partnership. Feedback from the project managers focused on the value of in-person meetings and the cultural differences in how project teams communicated internationally.

3. Project management - how those teams were structured and managed.

The UK funder had made it mandatory to have a UK based project manager, but not necessarily an overseas project manager. In addition, with a lot of these projects, they found that more and more specialist skills were needed over time. So, things like communications became a lot more important. For example, there may be the need for communicating research results in a format that's digestible and accessible for policy and decision makers. Or skills around monitoring and evaluating impact would also become more relevant in the later stages of the project.

So project support team design was not done with these skills in mind at the beginning.

It’s usually, or historically, been investigators that built the collaboration, and we’re saying that you also need the project managers, the program managers, the research administrators, the grants people to be engaged in building collaboration with their partners.

Did you formulate recommendations to improve success for the international research that could be considered at different stages of a research project?

H: We had a couple of recommendations for each of the stages: • Design - Talking to partners early, the importance of doing that as early as you can, can't be overstated, and consulting colleagues with project management expertise in that project design stage.

• Setup or inception stage - Set the expectations on communications and how you're going to work together: What kind of tools are you going to use? Are we going to use WhatsApp? What time of the day is suitable to message? This is the time to step away from that one size fits all thinking that universities can sometimes have. For example, we saw

an instance where a UK organization was running the due diligence on a new partner and asking for a particular type of insurance that didn’t actually exist in this country. Lastly, it is important to be really open about where there are strengths and where there are organizational gaps that might need to be filled.

• Implementation stage - The most important action is inclusivity and flexibility. Treat project management staff as equal to academic team members, such as including them in a range of meetings. Making sure that the project team has moments of reflection on how things are working, what's not working well Then if you think about taking those recommendations at each stage, how do you think the recommendations would relate to the various roles in the research project?

H: We split this into roles external to project teams and roles within the project team.

• External – funder: making sure that the calls are designed in a way that's going to be conducive to equitable and productive collaborations, but also see the strategic value of project support for these collaborations.

• External - research support offices or project support offices: What our data strongly showed was this internal role is external to the research team. The practice of hiring people on a temporary contract doesn't help with this division. There has to be a change in a mindset to seeing yourself if you work in a research office as part of a project team.

• Internal – principal investigator: consulting with those who have project management experience when you're designing a team.

• Internal – other research staff: seeing project support staff as peers.

Treat project management staff as equal to academic team members, such as including them in a range of meetings.

Do you think there's resistance to funders supporting project support pools?

P: I don't think it's really resistance per se to the idea. It's in need of a better management solution, like the sort of guidebook of how that would be managed going forward. I think our work here and our data here begins to contribute evidence towards solutions like that. However, I am not sure that Helen and I could walk into an organization or a funder and exactly tell them how to do this. No, not yet. It's going to take more research from a lot more people than just us to have that evidence where people could comfortably enact those management processes.

Do you have plans to continue your research?

H: We do. The next project is moving from the project support focus and thinking more about how collaborators come together, what are the main factors in those early stages.

So, you're more in favor of a pool of resources that could work on a variety of different projects?

H: Where I am now, it's much more that kind of approach. You have a lot of crossover between research and professional services or support roles. If there's a researcher who is on a large grant and then that's coming to an end, the organization will redeploy them, and quite often that means that people are going back and forth between different types of roles. For the colleagues who have done both, they have a much better insight into the challenges and the benefits of both sides.

P: It is a really good idea, but where oftentimes you'll get pushback is from a human resource management perspective because you can't readily predict where people will be working and who's covering the cost of the employee. We need to somehow figure out ways of managing the human resource functions in a more agile and flexible world.

This article was based on an interview conducted in October 2023 by NCURA members, Mary Catherine “MC” Gaisbauer, University of California San Francisco, and Jill Mortali, Dartmouth University, of the two researchers. N

Have you seen funders evolving their approaches, or is it too early?

H: To be honest, no, I've not seen a call where it says, the project or consortia must have a data management specialist, communications officer, etc. And in my experience of working with researchers and PIs is if there's a choice between funding an extra postdoc or funding a larger project office, then they'll go for the postdoc, which is understandable. But I think if the funder were more explicitly supportive of larger, more specialized project teams that would obviously help with that.

P: There is hope though. People are starting to realize, especially with all sort of the digital communications that can happen instantaneously all over the world that the idea of having additional project staff to manage those types of things is a very different environment than it once was. I hope what we have done here is a nice contribution of some evidence that those ideas are good ideas.

Dr. Helen Coskeran is a research development manager at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. She works with environmental scientists on proposal development and drives collaboration with funders and other strategic partners. She was previously based at the University of Leeds as programme manager of the GCRF-AFRICAP project - a major initiative to make agriculture and food production in Sub-Saharan Africa more productive, sustainable and resilient to climate change with partners in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, the UK and Zambia. She can be reached at helcos@ceh.ac.uk.

Acknowledgments The original data gathering was presented as a working paper by Helen Coskeran (University of Leeds, UK), Jon Lawn (University of Southampton, UK), Sithembile Mwamakamba (Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), South Africa) and Gail Wilson (University of Glasgow, UK). Helen Coskeran and Philip Cola (Case Western Reserve University, USA) subsequently conducted the literature review and refined the results and recommendations presented to make this suitable for further dissemination.

Dr. Philip Cola is a Professor of Management and Associate Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). He has more than 20 years of experience leading research administration in an Academic Medical Center where he was instrumental in designing and developing reliant IRB review mechanisms. Presently, he is also the Director of the Regulatory Knowledge and Support component of the CWRU Clinical Translational Science Award. He is the inaugural holder of the Chris Winkle Professorship in Healthcare Management at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU. He can be reached at pac4@case.edu.

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The Many Faces of Leadership Metrics & Systems

By Pamela Ray

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eing in a leadership role in research administration is like painting on an ever-changing canvas from day to day. We are responsible for ensuring proposals are submitted accurately and completely, awards are processed in a timely manner, expenditures are appropriate, financial and technical reports are submitted, funds are collected and drawn down, and final reports are completed on time. We must interpret regulations and then develop policies and procedures to ensure the requirements are met. To complete these varied tasks, a leader must surround himself with exceptional staff and provide the support and training for them to be successful.

If they are successful, we as leaders are too!

In my experience, the best leader is a servant leader who will never ask staff to do anything that he is not willing to do himself.

This leader will support staff in their career goals, even if their goals may not be in research administration. This leader will listen and get to know their staff to understand how to best interact, inspire, and motivate them. A servant leader will foster leadership skills in others. They will work to match skill sets with specific job duties, always be available when questions arise, and encourage and guide staff to arrive at their solution. The Servant Leader by James A. Autry explains these leadership traits in more detail.

Is leadership an art that can be learned? To quote Bennis and Nanus (1986), “Leaders are born, not made…Don’t believe it.

The truth is that major capacities and competencies of leadership can be learned, and we are all educable, at least if the basic desire to learn is there.” We are all leaders to some extent, and based upon drive and determination, leadership methods and tactics can be learned to effect change and improvement. Emulate those leaders that you admire. Ask them to be your mentor and learn what makes them successful.

Now that we have identified some faces of leadership, let’s investigate some tools that leaders can use to manage staff and accomplish the strategic goals of the department and the university. In research administration, leaders need to be able to assess workflow and processes. Available tools to accomplish this may consist of systems that track proposal submissions and award set-up. These systems, and other methods of data collection, can provide useful metrics to evaluate workload and identify overall processes and areas for improvement.

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As an example, here are some of the metrics that I have found useful for pre-award processes (all data is from the Florida State University [FSU] Research Administration Management Portal [RAMP] for the month of September 2023):

the Proposal Submission Policy and FSU’s three-day rule, which requires approval by Sponsored Research Administration three working days prior to the deadline. Departmental trends are further examined and communicated to department chairs.

Proposals Submitted by Specialist: This metric quickly identifies staff who may be over-extended and areas where workload should be redistributed. The leader can drill down to see specific proposals to determine which ones were extensive applications, thus requiring additional effort and reducing the overall total submitted for that specialist.

Average Workdays in Specialist Review: This metric is a useful internal analysis to determine overall specialist time spent in proposal review.

There are several factors contributing to the average workdays in specialist review. Principal investigators are encouraged to submit their proposal early, which could contribute to longer workdays in specialist review. However, even for these early submissions, our goal is to review and submit as quickly as possible, thus reducing the time spent in specialist review.

Proposals Submitted After Application Submission Deadline: This metric identifies proposals that were submitted after the proposal due date. This data requires further inquiry to understand the circumstances surrounding a submission, e.g., whether it was a genuinely late submission or an error in data entry.

Proposals Submitted to Specialist in Accordance with Three Working Days Rule: This metric is useful to document instances when principal investigators and departmental administrators are not following

Award Modifications Processed: This metric counts the number of award modifications processed by grant specialists and can identify workload constraints and excess capacity.

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Initial Awards Submitted to Award Approver to be Activated: This metric tracks the number of original awards processed by the grant specialist. Specialist capacity is noted for consideration.

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Average Workdays to Process Awards & Award Mods: This metric is especially critical to principal investigators in that a delay in this process results in a delay in project setup and start date. Our internal goal is three days, so this number for September needs further analysis and perhaps a departmental re-allocation among grant specialists to improve turnaround.

Cumulative Active Awards by Specialist: This metric can be coupled with previous metrics to highlight specialists with available capacity and those at full capacity.

Average Workdays to Activate Awards: Finally, this metric helps to document the internal process of award activation, which is the last step in the system for project start-up. The goal is one to two days, so for September, we are performing well.

Systems can provide a wealth of information via metrics for research administration leaders to make decisions regarding workload, process improvements, and accountability. Many of the metrics above are also published to the university campus for transparency. We are working to

Reference Bennis, W.G., & Nanus, B. (1986). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. Harper & Row. Pamela Ray is Senior Director of Sponsored Research Administration at Florida State University. She has more than 25 years’ experience as a research administrator with prior positions as Director of Contracts and Grants at the University of Georgia and Program Administrator for a Department of Defense contract at Mississippi State University. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Research Administrator and holds a master’s degree in accountancy. She can be reached at Pray2@fsu.edu.

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develop additional metrics to track sub-award activity and processes. In addition, our system is expanding its capabilities to include an analytics tool that we expect will streamline the process of extracting data going forward.

In closing, take advantage of the systems and tools at your disposal.

Utilize these tools to develop experts within your department who can train others to do the same. Leaders recognize the strengths of others and create an atmosphere for them to grow. Step back and let them do their job! N

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"Available tools to accomplish this may consist of systems that track proposal submissions and award set-up. These systems, and other methods of data collection, can provide useful metrics to evaluate workload and identify overall processes and areas for improvement."

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Expanding Horizons:

The Mustang Mentoring Program Experience

By Sarah Romack

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he Region V Mustang Mentoring Committee launched the Mustang Mentoring Program (MMP) in 2020. The primary purpose of MMP is to provide knowledge and experience to develop future leaders for mentee home institutions, the NCURA organization, and the research administration profession.

Mentees and mentors apply for participation in the program and are then matched based on background and areas of interest. Mentees are provided access to a range of tools and resources regarding leadership development to contribute to the knowledge base of new Region V leaders, within a supportive environment that fosters collaboration and learning. The program consists of the following: • Assigned readings from the book, “The Leadership Challenge,”

by James Kouzes and Barry Posner • Monthly presentations led by mentees, based on the 5 Practices of Exemplary Leadership described in “The Leadership Challenge” • Guest speakers from across the NCURA organization, including executive leaders • Development of a leadership project The leadership project is developed in consultation with the mentor and represents the culmination of the mentee’s participation in the program, which also provides an opportunity for leadership experience at the mentee’s own organization. Mentees identify, develop, and lead a project that will benefit their institution, in collaboration with their mentor and the institutional stakeholders. The leadership project is a requirement to graduate from the MMP program, and each mentee presents their leadership project at the fall regional meeting before becoming an MMP graduate.

A Mentee’s Perspective I had the opportunity to participate in the 2023 MMP cohort and my leadership project revolved around undergraduate research outreach. As a new professional in the field of research administration, the leadership project portion of the MMP was extremely valuable. The project allowed me to explore my interests, leverage my network, and reach outside of my comfort zone. My full-time position at the University of North Texas (UNT) is in research compliance, but I also serve as an adjunct instructor for a first-year seminar course for science majors. This interaction with students inspired me to create materials for my fellow instructors to utilize in their course in order to provide students with the knowledge of opportunities to get involved in research as an undergraduate student.

After discussing this idea with my supervisor and my MMP mentor, my next step was to meet with stakeholders across campus to get their feedback on what information would be most valuable to the students.

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I interviewed students, biology and chemistry faculty members, seminar instructors, the College of Science advising director and assistant director, and the vice president for research and innovation. During this process, I appreciated regular meetings with my MMP mentor so that I could obtain

”...the experience far exceeded my expectations.“ constructive criticism and discuss my ideas. I compiled my findings, created the resources, and shared them with my fellow instructors over the summer as we prepared for the fall semester. As a result of this emphasis on research, a larger number of students in my class have applied for summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs), met with faculty to discuss joining a research team, and submitted a poster for the UNT’s annual Research Day poster session. In 2020, UNT earned Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) status, and our division hopes to promote undergraduate research opportunities to students, especially those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Being able to present my project at the NCURA Region V conference not only gave me the chance to hone my presentation skills, but it also provided me with a chance to discuss how to assess, improve, and expand upon the original idea.

One of the MMP mentors in the presentation audience brought up the idea of finding ways to better support faculty who have or would like to have undergraduates serve on their research teams. Another audience member shared her experiences as a science major at a large research university and it was insightful to hear her perspective.

I applied for the MMP with the hope that I would learn more about the field and meet new people and the experience far exceeded my expectations.

I am so thankful to have had the chance to be part of the program and to grow professionally and personally. N Sarah Romack is the Director of Ethics & International Research Compliance at the University of North Texas. In this role, she oversees conflict of interest, export control, international affiliations, and research security. She is a 2023 graduate of the NCURA Region V Mustang Mentoring Program. Sarah can be reached at Sarah.romack@unt.edu.

• Administering Research Contracts • Compensation-Personal Services: Documenting and Supporting Salary Charges to Federal Award • Crafting Fully Compliant Budgets • Financial Management of Sponsored Program Awards • How to Effectively Manage an Audit • Improving Efficiencies: Assessing the Sponsored Research Operation • International Research Collaborations • A Primer on Business Continuity • A Primer on Export Controls • Understanding & Managing Sponsored Program Administration at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions

Art

The of Leadership in Research Administration

By Angela Wishon

“The Many Faces of Leadership” is our theme for this issue. Within our theme we have explored what it means to be in a leadership position for research administrators. We recognize that our members serve in various roles within research administration, experience various cultures at their institutions, and come from diverse types of institutions.

However, we often note that within this variance we also share similar challenges. For example, the ever-changing regulatory framework for research administration does not vary that much.

As such, strategies and styles for management and leadership is a topic that many research administrators in leadership positions agree that are critical to develop and may have commonalities across various roles within research administration. Specifically, the “softer skills” are skills that all research administrators need to be successful.

So, it seems fitting in this issue to share an excerpt from the upcoming NCURA publication on leadership that is focused on mastering the “soft skills” that not only develop individual skills, but inherently builds the relationships that contribute to our profession. We also took this opportunity to ask Stephen and Kim what advice they, as leaders, would give to someone new to research administration as the top “softer skills” in which to focus and develop.

The insight they provided: “Leadership isn’t easy. It demands constant communication, determination, a willingness to adapt, and a commitment to accept responsibility. Effective leadership depends on a code of conduct, and civility is its foundation. Civility in discourse and managerial practice is uplifting. Civility fosters an organizational culture that is supportive, tolerant, and respectful. It improves interactions, encourages trust, and helps defuse tensions. Leaders in research support should practice civility, teach civility, reward civility, and ensure that civility is manifest in the office.”

—Kim Moreland, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Administration, University of Wisconsin – Madison “The first soft skill to develop is kindness. Kindness is generously and freely helping others. It requires acting with respect, fairness, and integrity beyond one's own self-interest. Kindness is the foundation for working with people and for leading an organization.”

—Stephen Hansen, Emeritus Professor and Dean, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

~excerpt from The Soft Stuff is the Hard Stuff: The Challenge of Management and Leadership

‘‘

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eadership is an art,” Max De Pree famously wrote. It is “something to be learned over time…. Leadership is more tribal than scientific, more a meaning of relationships than an amassing of information.” If leadership is an art, then leadership in research administration is a special application of that art. It requires a unique expression of imagination, creativity, and learning. In offices of sponsored projects, leadership is complex. The art of leadership in research administration demands special attention to communication, language, principles, and service. The literature on leadership is extensive. These books and articles range from descriptions of personal characteristics of leaders to lists of functions and obligations of leaders. Edgar Schein, for example, defines leadership in terms of behavior, while Stephen Covey focuses on behavior and the characteristics of leaders. NCURA has devoted significant attention to understanding the nature and meaning of leadership. In NCURA’s Sponsored Research Administration: A Guide to Effective Strategies and Recommended Practices, the chapter on leadership, edited by Anthony Ventimiglia, covers a multitude of leadership qualities and characteristics.

While all of these studies offer valuable perspectives on the meaning of leadership, we want to focus on those aspects of leadership that we believe are particularly important for research administration. We will explore the roles of a leader, the characteristics or qualities of a leader, the styles of leadership, and the kinds of power used by leaders. In this discussion about leadership, we want to make it clear that leadership is not exclusive to title or rank. We can all be leaders regardless of our positions in the organizational hierarchy.

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COMING SOON!

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e have witnessed profound changes in the administration of research over the past five decades. Fueled by federal funding, research expanded dramatically. New frontiers opened in the life sciences, medicine, arts, humanities, engineering, and physical sciences. Simultaneously, the legal and ethical controls governing sponsored research grew exponentially in scope and complexity. As a result, we have seen the character of research administration change.

In this new publication, we discuss the principles of research administration, the art of leadership, the skills of communication, the management of personnel, and the importance of people skills.

TOPICS INCLUDE: CHAPTER 1:

THE CHALLENGE OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION

CHAPTER 2: THE ART OF LEADERSHIP IN RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION CHAPTER 3: COMMUNICATION: THE MOST IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP SKILL CHAPTER 4: CIVILITY AND THE LANGUAGE OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP CHAPTER 5: KINDNESS: A COROLLARY TO CIVILITY CHAPTER 6: WORKING WITH DIFFICULT BOSSES CHAPTER 7:

WORKING WITH DIFFICULT EMPLOYEES

CHAPTER 8: FIGHTING BURNOUT CHAPTER 9: CLIENT SERVICES AND THE FUNDAMENTALS OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION CHAPTER 10: RECRUITING AND RETAINING TALENTED STAFF

Open Door Leadership: Prioritizing Opportunities for Others

By Robyn Remotigue and Anthony Ventimiglia

W

alk into any bookstore or search Amazon and you will find a plethora of books about leadership and how to lead a team. Leaders Open Doors written by Bill Treasurer (2016) offers unique opportunities for open door leadership that provides ways to help people stretch and grow.

Open door leadership is not about creating an open-door policy and telling your team members that your door is always open. Open door leadership is about noticing, identifying, and creating opportunities for those you lead. We have chosen to highlight some of the doors of opportunity that we have put into practice in leading our respective teams.

The Proving-Ground Door As leaders, how do we decide who deserves an opportunity? Everyone deserves opportunities because it provides self-worth. Opportunities are urgently needed for a person who is early in their career and wants to prove themselves. Someone who has suffered a career setback also wants an opportunity to prove themselves to reclaim confidence. Additionally, there are team members who desire the opportunity to showcase their skills so they can advance in their profession.

Leaders open the door for opportunity and are often the only person with the key to make this happen. As an open-door leader, you should dole out opportunities in manageable doses so that you don’t inadvertently set someone up for failure. Start off taking small steps that lead to big opportunities, keeping in mind that little doors come before big doors. As a leader, you can offer check-ins during the smaller steps. These check-ins offer a time of reflection and ongoing support that can serve as a confidence booster.

Creating other leaders is an essential responsibility of leadership. Getting a break from their regular routines is something that future leaders desire.

When you provide opportunities, you validate that an individual is worth taking a chance on which creates a level of trust.

Some things to reflect on after reading this section: • Is there someone on your team who has been asking for a chance to take on greater challenges or responsibilities?

• How could you make this happen?

• What small opportunities could you offer as preparation for bigger ones?

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The Thought Shifting Door Open door leaders know how to shift the way people think. Shifting can be done by catching people off guard, by disrupting their mental routines.

Instead of holding a team meeting in the usual meeting room, take them outside or change the locations. Most campuses have outdoor seating areas and can offer a refreshing experience. If it’s too hot outside, explore your campus and find another unique place to meet. Choose a climate to help inspire new ideas and spark creativity.

Leaders can help shift their team’s focus back to the priorities that matter most. Instead of thinking that’s the way it’s always been done, shift the focus on all the possibilities of how it could be done. Inspire more creativity in the workplace by elevating people to help ignite their imagination. During team meetings, discuss what is going well and what might be considered.

Open the thought shifting door to think positively, constructively, and productively. Keep in mind that if you desire uncommon ideas, you should not pursue common approaches.

The Door to a Second Chance As leaders, this is an opportunity to look at your team’s skillset. What others view as a potential problem might offer an opportunity to strengthen the team. Oftentimes, leaders are quick to punish and slow to forgive. By choosing forgiveness over punishment, open door leaders create opportunities. Sometimes opportunities can outweigh the risks.

It’s important to remember that team members can make honest mistakes simply due to lack of experience or knowledge. Perhaps in retrospect, the team member didn’t have adequate training or wasn’t informed

of appropriate policies and procedures. However, with appropriate training they have the potential to add value to the team.

Open door leaders can create learning opportunities out of most situations. Small and/or big mistakes provide the best learning. Staff are likely to retain lessons learned during the process, which in the long run adds value to the team.

Some things to reflect on after reading this section: • Are team members getting professional development to help keep them current in the field?

• Are you a “no chance” leader?

• Do you choose forgiveness over an iron-fisted punishment?

• What example do you set for other team members by the way you handle mistakes?

Opening Doors for “Others” We often find it very easy to socialize and connect with people who look, talk, act and think like we do; however, this can have very debilitating impacts on office productivity and morale and can cause those who are least like the leader (referred to as “others” in this context) to feel neglected and unheard.

From a leadership standpoint, this potentially excludes varied perspectives and ideas that could help a leader make more informed decisions and may also have an adverse effect on opportunities for promotion and advancement.

Simply defined, “Others” are those who represent a smaller percentage within an office/organization. Often, the focus would be on increasing opportunities for women, but given the configuration of gender within research administration, the issue needs to be considered much more broadly without limitations to gender, race, ethnicity, etc.

Open-door leaders need to be proactive in engaging all employees and being receptive to various viewpoints and perspectives. This can be a challenge and requires strong commitment and focus. It is so easy to become complacent with listening to those who think like you and will always tell you what you want to hear (and usually maintains the status quo….); however, allowing for new voices, opinions, and ideas can greatly enhance our working relationships and office dynamics.

In research administration–sometimes being an “other” is tied to specific roles (pre-or post-award, compliance, etc.). Broadening our knowledge base, getting to know the individual, and setting a goal toward educating ourselves about the entire lifecycle of a sponsored project truly helps us to be more informed.

As an organization, NCURA has made great strides in relation to diversity and inclusion–addressing its commitment to ensure that there is broader representation amongst its members and leadership and fully supporting a culture of inclusion: NCURA Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) recognizes, values, and celebrates diversity of persons, skills, and experiences in its mission to advance the profession of research administration. Thus, NCURA is committed to building and maintaining a diverse membership and a culture of inclusion. Every member of NCURA has a right, without regard to gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, social class, sexual orientation, ability, personality, functional experience, or background, to fair and respectful treatment, equal access to resources to support professional growth, and equitable opportunities to contribute to NCURA’s success.

The Select Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (following on the work of an initial task force) is supporting a number of initiatives that may be of interest to those seeking to “open doors for others.”

Finally, from an institutional standpoint, many universities have offices committed to supporting diversity and inclusion –take an opportunity to speak with representatives from these offices to see how they can support your goals in this area.

“Inspire more creativity in the workplace by elevating people to help ignite their imagination.”

The Door to Personal Transformation Leadership is not only about momentum and results (we will address this later in this article). When serving as an open-door leader, our goal should be to encourage people to expand their horizons (or “flex” to areas of growth). Human growth and development require constantly advancing from who you are to who you want to become. When you know who you are, you can truly appreciate those around you.

The most powerful means of promoting personal transformation is through the example leaders set as role models. We should never be put in the position where it is “do what I say, not what I do”. It is also important to recognize that the term leader has less to do with hierarchy and more to do with the influence you bring to bear on people and situations.

Staying involved, engaged, and supportive is critical–and so is a modicum of patience (which is often difficult for many of us). Research administration tends to be a fast-paced environment in which we juggle multiple responsibilities and stakeholder relationships daily, but we need to ensure that we do not lose sight of the individual and ways in which we can better serve as a resource and mentor.

When discussing personal transformation, you cannot exclude accountability. Accountability is an all-or-nothing proposition. Open-door leaders create an environment where everyone, including yourself, is held accountable (not a “pass-the-buck” mentality). This sometimes poses a challenge to the research administrator. In most areas of research administration, work product moves through many offices–if accountability is not considered (or stressed), finger pointing and “the blame game” (it wasn’t my responsibility….) creep into what may have been strong relationships. A personal experience involved a budget transfer moving funds from a grant account to a departmental account that went through two approvers before reaching me via an electronic system. This clearly was not an approvable action and when I queried the two prior approvers, the response was, “the faculty member wanted it processed and I knew it would be caught higher up the approval chain.”

In some cases (and the prior example would be a good case for this…), we get the opportunity to serve as a “velvet hammer.” In doing so, we try to provide straightforward feedback in a manner that makes someone pay attention without putting up their defenses. Unfortunately, some people pride themselves on being brutally honest, which often does not work to instill personal transformation (except in a negative manner).

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The Door to Your Open Heart Over the course of your career, you’ll work with a lot of mediocre leaders.

Ultimately what differentiates open-door leaders is in the way they care about us and our well-being. Open-door leaders reveal themselves to us, letting us see their own hardships, vulnerabilities, and human idiosyncrasies. In short, they are “real” with us.

A single-minded focus on results often leads directly to treating people poorly. Within research administration, many metrics dictate our institutional standing, prestige, and relevance. Everyone looks to the annual release of the NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey to see if they have moved-up in the ranking of expenditures. Fiscal year end at most institutions is a push to process as many new awards as possible to ensure that “those numbers get counted!” From an internal standpoint, it is often difficult to request personnel or resources when external funding is low (regardless of the impact of unfunded compliance mandates, etc.). All these issues tend to move the focus away from people– our most important resource.

There are some who think it is too much of a risk to be “real” with their employees because there is the chance of being considered weak or soft.

However, finding the right balance that works for your office can reflect well on productivity (and those results….).

There are many ways to accomplish this, and few require much time or resources. Thank you notes for a job well done are an easy way to show appreciation (hand-written provides a personal touch). Given the end of fiscal year crunch we experienced recently, I kept our breakroom freezer stocked with ice cream treats for a few weeks and told everyone to take a little break each afternoon to enjoy a snack and re-energize. Taking time during staff meetings to share success stories (tough negotiations that ended well, interesting awards received, etc.) gives people a chance to share what they are doing, but also encourages others to find things that

they can share. It is important to find what works best for your team, and of course, some form of celebration on Research Administrator Day is always warranted!

Some things to self-reflect on after reading this section: • What brings you joy at work?

• What impact do you want to have on your staff/faculty/others?

• What three words describe you at your best?

Leaders who create open doors of opportunity for their teams have a lasting impact because they will, in turn, create opportunities for others. It is a simple leadership approach that helps people show kindness and thrive in their profession. N Robyn Remotigue, MPPA, CRA, is Executive Director of Research Services, in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. She has been in research administration for more than 20 years. She is a graduate of the 2012 NCURA Executive Leadership Program and 2010 NCURA Leadership Development Institute. She serves as Chair of Region V’s Mustang Mentoring Program. Robyn is also a faculty member of NCURA’s traveling workshop SPA II: Critical Issues in Research Administration and NCURA Peer Reviewer. Robyn can be reached at Robyn.Remotigue@unthsc.edu.

Anthony (Tony) Ventimiglia is Assistant Vice President for Research Administration in the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research & Economic Development at Auburn University. Tony is a graduate of the 2005 NCURA Leadership Development Institute and 2015 NCURA Executive Leadership Program. With more than 20 years in research administration, Tony has served in various leadership roles within NCURA including as Chair of Region III, NCURA Secretary and President. Tony currently serves as a faculty member of NCURA’s Contract Administration & Negotiation traveling workshop. Tony can be reached at Ventiaf@auburn.edu.

WITH NCURA PUBLICATIONS Expand your knowledge with these easily readable, concise and affordable resources. ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY! • A Primer on Clinical Trials • Compensation – Personal Services: Managing and Reporting Effort • Cost Sharing: An Overview • Facilities and Administrative Costs in Higher Education

• Establishing and Managing an Office of Sponsored Programs at Non-Research Intensive Colleges and Universities • A Primer on Intellectual Property • The Role of Research Administration • Writing and Negotiating Subawards

Office of

ON IMER IALS A PR TR ICAL CLIN R THE FO ARCH R RESE RATO NIST ADMI

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FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO ORDER THESE PUBLICATIONS VISIT THE NCURA STORE: www.ncura.edu/PublicationsStore.aspx

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Research Administration in Africa

The Many Facets of Leadership in Research Administration: Perspectives from West Africa

By Beatrice Sakyibea Biney-Nyamekye and Rosemarie Terez-Santos

esearch administration and management is a complex and dynamic profession that requires a combination of skills, knowledge, and experiences, including leadership skills, to navigate successfully. To succeed in this field, one needs to balance the needs and expectations of the various stakeholders, including funders, partners, and beneficiaries, which will require strong leadership skills. Leadership skills are critical to the performance of our work. Highlight the necessary leadership skills, the qualities one will exhibit, and how research administrators can lead their institutions. Research administrators play leading roles in shaping and delivering research and innovation activities of research institutions.

There are many facets and levels of leadership in research administration.

Leadership in research administration can be at the point of providing high quality, added value, and service to researchers across the research development pipeline to providing support for nurturing partnerships and collaborations, identifying and applying for funding, managing research projects, and ensuring compliance with policy, improving the visibility of research outputs, fostering impact, intellectual property, and commercialization of research, and the nurturing of research leadership skills from training and skills development program.

This article considers the first individual or officer level, where the research administrator provides leadership to researchers in their duties, such as scouting for funding, research development, ensuring compliance with policies, and managing funded research. Beyond this is yet another level of leadership where a research administrator’s work will include leading a team of other research support staff to provide the services outlined above. This may include overseeing the flow and distribution of workload, managing the professional development and career advancement of other research support staff, and forging collaborations with other partners.

Yet another leadership level is where the individual or the officeholder

R

must provide strategic leadership, including spearheading the development of research policies and procedures and creating a conducive environment for research and innovation.

In the scheme of work, a research administrator may be required to work within a team to organize, delegate, and distribute work to meet specific deadlines and monitor progress across the team’s project portfolio; manage staff development and approaches to working; manage the continuing and professional development needs of other staff and assess their training and development needs of team members to ensure that they develop; and maintain specialist knowledge and provide adequate support about their work responsibilities. There is yet another leadership level where an individual may have strategic responsibility for research and innovation and spearhead the direction of travel.

“Strong leadership skills are essential in building relationships to thrive in the current research funding landscape, leading in solving problems and managing conflict, increasing productivity and research income, boosting morale, and inspiring innovation.”

Like many other businesses, strong leadership skills are beneficial in achieving the strategic objectives of an institution. In all these, a leader NCURA Magazine

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NOTABLE PRACTICES

R

esearch administrators play a vital role in advancing their institution’s research enterprise. These contributions go beyond the perceptions commonly held by others about how research administrators primarily provide administrative and support functions.

Rather, our contributions regularly extend to leadership functions whether performed by a senior leader, a mid-level manager, or engaged staff who embrace the spirit of leadership.

Communication is at the heart of effective leadership. Recent reviews

by NCURA Peer Review teams have highlighted or suggested notable practices that focus on leadership and communication, including: • Periodic cross-organizational meetings between the senior research leaders (e.g., Vice President/Chancellor for Research) and academic research leaders (e.g., Associate Deans for Research).

• Regular meetings between leaders of central administrative units that support the research enterprise, especially when those units report to different senior leaders. Such meetings are important for ensuring well-coordinated operations, especially when responsibilities overlap.

• Clearly articulated roadmaps to help ensure that the research community understands institutional goals for developing the research enterprise. The roadmap can also be used to help align budget requests and allocations with institutional priorities Leadership does not always come from those in leadership positions.

It can come from those who are responsible for performing the regular operations of central offices and academic units. For example, conducting new award briefings with PIs when they receive their first award from a sponsor, including using a checklist that identifies roles and responsibilities and links to applicable policies and procedures.

Research administrators often exercise leadership by interacting with the leaders and staff from other offices and units from across the institution. For example, their presence on institutional committees and taskforces often helps ensure that other mission-critical activities, such as instruction, do not dominate institutional decision making or policy and procedure development at the expense of research.

Although the above notable practices are important, they all rely on the foundational notable practice of professional development for all research administrators through training, networking, and expanding knowledge and skills. N

must be well equipped with the requisite skills and knowledge to succeed in today's fast-paced environment, characterized by limited resources and ever-changing policies and regulations of research funders. Essential skills required to navigate the current research landscape include (i) Communication, (ii) Interpersonal skills/ability to form and maintain meaningful relationships with funders, researchers, other professional services staff, etc., (iii) Problem-solving, (iv) Decision-making, and (v) Delegation.

Strong leadership skills are essential in building relationships to thrive in the current research funding landscape, leading in solving problems and managing conflict, increasing productivity and research income, boosting morale, and inspiring innovation.

Research administration is an evolving profession in Africa, with many higher education institutions now establishing structures, including the establishment of research offices, the development of policies, and the recruitment of staff that enable them to manage research and innovation in directions that fulfill missions, goals, and regulatory requirements of their institutions. For many of these institutions, research administration is in its nascent stage. There is low awareness of the enabling effect of research administration, and many higher education institutions still need to establish a research support office, which varies in size and scope.

Hence, many colleges and universities need administrative units or offices to manage grants and systematically review and approve research.

Where research offices exist, they are in their nascent stage or may need more professionals to support the research agenda and existing uncertainties surrounding the research administrator's role and responsibilities in many higher education institutions across the continent. In many parts of the continent, the roles and responsibilities of the research officer and the research manager are used interchangeably, and the positions may be merged. This may be attributable to the nascent nature of research offices in the sub-region. Not all institutions have these three positions or their level of leadership. Some research offices may be managed by lone individuals and thus exhibit all three levels or positions shown by one individual.

In a region saddled with relatively poor research infrastructure, limited resources, and poor coordination with other funding or research agencies, leadership plays a pivotal role in surmounting the uphill task of supporting talented researchers. Research administrators, if empowered, will be abreast with the conditions under which their partners from other institutions work, relate to culturally diverse situations, and devise ways to work effectively in these culturally diverse environments to support each other in promoting global research. N References

Bruce Morgan is Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Administration at the University of California, Irvine. He currently serves as a peer reviewer and is a member of the NCURA Select Committee on Peer Programs/ Peer Review.

NOTABLE PRACTICES

Whether you work at a research institution or a predominantly undergraduate institution, the importance of providing quality services to your faculty in support of their research and scholarship is undeniable. NCURA offers a number of programs to assist your research administration operations and to ensure a high-quality infrastructure that supports your faculty and protects the institution.

Please contact NCURA Peer Programs: NCURA Peer Advisory Services and NCURA Peer Review Program at peerreview@ncura.edu.

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Michael A. Abebe, Amanuel G. Tekleab & Augustine A. Lado (2020) Multilevel perspectives on leadership in the African context, Africa Journal of Management, 6:3, 145–160, DOI: 10.1080/23322373.2020.1779575 Cole, S. S. (2010). Reframing research administration. Journal of Research Administration, 41(1), 11-21.

Ferland, J., & Ritchie, J. (2010). The leadership paradox. National Council of University Research Administrators Magazine, XLII(7), 18-19.

Beatrice Sakyibea Biney-Nyamekye is a Senior Research Development Officer and currently supervises the College of Basic and Applied Sciences grants management office at the University of Ghana. She has over eleven years of experience working in research offices, including the Office of Research, Innovation, and Development (ORID) of the University of Ghana. She can be reached at bsbiney-nyamekye@ug.edu.gh.

Dr. Rosemarie Terez-Santos is Associate Vice-President for Research, Assessment, and Faculty Development at Cuttington University Liberia.

She previously served in various high-level positions at Universidad de Zamboanga (Philippines), William V.S. Tubman University (West Africa), and African Methodist Episcopal University (Liberia). She can be reached at rtsantos@cu.edu.lr.

The

Financial Management of Sponsored Program Awards Are you new to post-award administration? Do you need to learn about the financial management of sponsored programs? NCURA’s newest publication contains a wealth of information on post-award management.

Topics include: • Explanation of the framework that governs the management of post-award activities • Detailed information on the Uniform Guidance • Guidance on allowable costs • Key issues of post-award management • Coordination of roles and responsibilities for monitoring, reporting, cash management, prior approvals, compliance, and other activities

The

Financial Management of Sponsored Progra

m Awards

This 80+ page resource is available exclusively as a PDF for immediate download

https://onlinelearning.ncura.edu/read-and-explore

INCLUSION INITIATIVES

The Principles of Leadership for Research Administrators in the DEIB Era

By Sybile Bahiya

A leader sees greatness in other people.

He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.

D

oes this quote reflect the kind espouse leadership in their daily work of leadership we experience in to improve processes or advocate for research administration today? changes whereas a manager’s or Should we challenge our director’s leadership role will be more leaders to be more inclusive focused on the overall cultural needs and respectful of the many perspectives and vision of the institution. Employees MAYA ANGELOU we represent? The lessons from this quote can need to understand that taking initiative resonate with many leaders at various levels of the at their level of responsibility can influence institution based on the approach they utilize to changes. Seeking opportunities to participate bring changes. Leadership is defined in the Oxford in activities that bring changes are all significant dictionary as “a position of a person or group of people with actions of leadership. the art to influence others.” This definition certainly sets a leader up What Constitutes being a leader? as someone who could develop and articulate a clear vision that inspires and empowers others to embark on a journey of change. Like In the era of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), what many other professions, research administrators can encounter difficulties constitutes being a leader are the actions that a person takes with aim at deciding who should be their leader and what should that person achieve. challenging the mind-set of a group of privileged people to implement As research administrators, we face multiple challenges every day, from changes that will benefit the marginalized. This type of leadership is about dealing with PIs’ various needs and the institution’s structural requirements building bridges and increasing collaboration between parties. Gaining to navigating the ever-changing landscape of policies and regulations. To buy-in and unifying people is key! New leaders that emerge these days better address the needs of this challenging profession, a leader who ought to inspire hope and instill confidence in people to follow their rises at any level must be inclusive and ensure that more perspectives are actions, not just their words. They must be inclined to allow their followers represented in their institution’s decision-making process. to hold them accountable too if their actions diverge from what they are advocating. It is important for a new leader to figure out the best What does it mean to be in a leadership position for RA? approach for motivating people to embrace new ideas or initiatives.

Being a leader in research administration can be apparent at various levels Certainly, challenges should be addressed with people’s well-being in and present many facets depending on the position one holds within the mind, and understanding of their needs. institution. Being in a leadership position means to assume responsibilities What are the characteristics of a Leader? Are they applied to direct and guide others. This can be achieved even without supervisory differently in a DEIB sensitive world? responsibilities. A research administrator can embrace a leadership role even if he or she does not have direct reports. Being a leader has nothing One of the challenges of leadership today at any organization or in a to do with the title one holds, but more to do with the actions you take profession is the ability to listen to everyone’s voices and incorporate to influence others. A leader identifies issues, takes actions, and rallies those ideas into the leader’s vision. But if mastered, this skill can facilitate a group of people to move toward a better vision. With this mind-set, the implementation of new ideas and generate greater buy-in. Good leadresearch administrators at all levels can take on this role and influence ership starts with active listening skills. While representing a diverse change. For instance, an administrator at a departmental level can group of people, a leader’s responsibility is to create a safe place for 50

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everyone to express themselves and articulate their needs. Leaders should also be compassionate; they should be able to see the person in the whole context of the situation, make them feel respected and valued, then empower them to act. Another important characteristic of a leader is inclusiveness; leaders must understand that they are at the service of others, not oneself. They ought to challenge their own beliefs and develop empathetic thinking. In doing so, they will create greater trust among their followers and facilitate the implementation of new ideas. Finally, great leaders must have great communication skills. Without effective communication nothing can be achieved! A leader can have great ideas and good intentions but if they lack great communication skills, all these ideas will be lost in the forest of other priorities. The use of good communication style combined with a clear vision will help articulate the cause and create the movement.

Can the art of leadership be learned?

One common examination about leadership is whether leaders are born, or can the concept be taught? This question has divided experts in the field for some time. While many believe that the specific qualities expected from leaders like communication, intellectual curiosity, and emotional maturity can only be acquired as one progress in their career journey, others point out that there must be a pre-disposed inclination or character traits for someone to embrace leadership. Not everyone will feel comfortable influencing others and guiding people to disturb the status quo and implement changes. The element of leadership should already be pre-existent in someone before they can be nurtured and developed. Surely, it can be argued that leadership can be taught, however this cannot happen in a vacuum. If someone does not possess certain natural qualities expected from leaders, it will be difficult to instill in them the leadership mind-set.

Institutions tend to spend resources investing in professional development programs to promote people in leadership positions based on job seniority or academic qualifications; this approach has proven to sometimes lead to detrimental results within the organization. Institutions should first identify their natural leaders and invest in their development to teach them the necessary skills needed for growth. They must stop regarding leadership as destiny or a career promotion, instead they should understand that a person’s unique character combined with their journey through life and the situations they have been exposed to will better prepare them to take on leadership roles. Institutions are encouraged to invest more in identifying those people and nurturing them to become better, more resilient leaders.

Do research administrators lead their institutions and agencies in directions that fulfill missions, goals and regulatory requirements or are we the backroom support staff?

One misleading thought of leadership is the fact that the profession is afforded only to those who are at a higher hierarchical level of their institution. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Leadership can be practiced at various levels of an institution. Based on identified needs, a leader can influence culture and change processes. Though certain hierarchical levels tend to have larger decision-making power to impact the vision and the culture of the institution, someone at a lower level can also be a conduit for change. This bottom-up approach is helpful in addressing the needs of marginalized populations and exposing issues that might have been traditionally ignored by upper administration. Depending on your level in your institution, leadership can take different facets. At a depart-

“Ultimately, a leader is at the

service of a common purpose for the greater good.” mental level administrators can adopt a transactional leadership style that will encourage their co-workers to embrace a change mind-set and create efficient workflows that will improve their conditions. Comparatively, a manager will embrace more of a democratic or coach leadership style to encourage their team to assume more responsibilities and adjust to new changes implemented by the organization. At a higher level, a leader will seek to align changes to the institution’s vision, mission, and culture.

Different characteristics are expected of these leaders and their understanding of navigating the conflicting priorities of all stakeholders, determining their success.

Ultimately, leadership should not just be expected from people at a certain level of the institution. Everyone who can identify challenges and have a great idea and courage to inspire change can adopt a leadership role. However, it is important not to worsen existing toxic conditions, thus some leaders must proceed with caution. As long as these brave people remain positive and objective about their contributions to their institutions, research administrators should come out of the shadow of backroom support staff and take initiatives to influence all levels of change.

Research administrators must never keep a blind eye to any discriminatory practice but always embrace the opportunity to influence change.

Conclusion The art of leadership is a skill that can be learned! Ultimately, a leader is at the service of a common purpose for the greater good. Research administrators are in a prime position to influence change for the better.

We cannot just remain in the backroom as support staff, we must challenge our institutions to implement changes and policies that will be beneficial for all. A leader can rise at any level and initiate changes. In doing so, leaders are essentially well versed in the varying leadership characteristics.

It is imperative that great leaders be inclusive, compassionate, and empathetic with active listening and strong communication skills. Foremost, leaders should influence people to follow a shared vision and empower them to achieve a common goal.

Those who make great leaders understand how to balance conflicting priorities and become servants of their followers. They advocate for the needs of the people, they are intentionally inclusive, and they seek to implement a culture that recognizes the diversity of the population as a strength. This kind of leader helps establish a culture of belonging for all.

Such an environment is a bedrock for success in an organization. Most of all, the challenge of a leader in a DEIB era is to understand the various needs of the people and how the vision articulated will affect everyone differently. Be mindful of the challenge to implement such a vision! N Sybile Bayiha, MS, is a Senior Manager of Compliance & Data Analysis at the University of Maryland College Park. In her role she oversees the compliance functions of the University to ensure adherence to regulations associated with sponsored research awards. She is a member of the NCURA Select Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (SCDEI). She can be reached at sbayiha@umd.edu.

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Research Administration in Europe

ORCHESTRATING INNOVATION FARIA’s Collaborative Vision and Leadership Approach

By Jérôme Rickmann and Mari Olafson Lundemo

C

oordinating efforts across 16 Finnish higher education institutions to jointly engage with U.S. innovation ecosystems, the joint leadership of Aalto University and the University of Helsinki propels the Finnish-American Research and Innovation Accelerator (FARIA) into the forefront of Finnish-American Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) partnerships and support services. In this article, the lead network developers reflect on the different forms of skill and leadership required in this endeavor which more than once has been compared to “herding cats.” In the intricate tapestry of FARIA’s collaborative journey, the project’s success is closely linked to the dynamic and dispersed leadership across our member base.

Shared Vision and Strategic Alignment As project leaders our collaborative journey begins with a shared vision and strategic alignment. Our common ground is founded in a strong dedication to promote and facilitate research and innovation, and we approach our mandate flexibly to find our own ways to reach our goals.

Navigating the nuanced landscape of cross-border collaborations demands a collective understanding of both Finnish and American academic environments. Our leadership approach hinges on strategic foresight, steering FARIA’s initiatives to synchronize with the evolving needs of the RDI landscape.

Facilitating Funding Opportunities Promoting funding opportunities that support collaboration is a crucial aspect of FARIA’s mission. Promoting grant writing acumen is a shared skill that enables our member base to secure financial support effectively.

Collaborating closely with organizations like the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) in the US, our leadership approach revolves around navigating the funding landscape with precision and professional knowhow.

Cultivating Networks for Success FARIA’s influence extends across states with diverse academic and industrial ecosystems. Networking prowess is a cornerstone of our leadership strategy.

Establishing connections in Silicon Valley, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, and Texas requires not just individual effort but a collective, network-centric mindset. It also requires an overall insight and understanding of the states, the ability to assess the opportunities and strengths of each of them.

Navigating Challenges with Agility In the realm of research and innovation, challenges are inevitable. Our leadership dynamic thrives on adaptive problem-solving, allowing us to 52

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swiftly navigate obstacles and ensure the seamless execution of collaborative projects. Innovation stems from our ability to think on our feet and devise creative solutions collectively. Following this, FARIA has developed into a remarkably flexible and dynamic network, which is able to identify and make use of emerging opportunities.

Fostering a Culture of Collaboration Central to our leadership philosophy is fostering a culture of collaboration.

The strength of FARIA lies not in our leadership but in the collective expertise of our members. As our membership base consists of a wide range of experts in various fields, and with interests which do not necessarily seem to be easily aligned, it is our task cross these boundaries and demonstrate where and how common ground can be found. Modern leadership, as we see it, involves creating mechanisms for dispersed leadership on many levels. We empower our members to take the lead on initiatives according to their strengths.

Conclusion: A Tapestry of Distributed Leadership Reflecting on our leadership journey, we acknowledge that no leader is strong on all the skills needed. Instead, we champion a model of distributed leadership, enabling our members to shine in their areas of expertise.

Modern leadership, for us, revolves around creating mechanisms for dispersed leadership on many levels while aligning common goals and actions. A welcomed by-product of this approach is “ownership” across the board. Our members “own” FARIA and its activities, which fosters a sense of shared responsibility and opportunity. In the collaborative realm of FARIA, it is this collective strength that propels us forward into the future of international research and innovation. N

Jérôme Rickmann, PhD, is Senior Advisor, Global Engagement, Leadership Support Services at Aalto University. He is project lead and co-coordinator of the Finnish-American Research and Innovation Accelerator (FARIA). He can be reached at Jerome.rickmann@aalto.fi.

Mari Olafson Lundemo, PhD, is Senior Advisor, International Affairs at the University of Helsinki. Her area of responsibility is U.S. engagement, and she is project lead and co-coordinator of the Finnish-American Research and Innovation Accelerator (FARIA).

She can be reached at Mari.olafsonlundemo@helsinki.fi.

Last year NCURA did a survey to identify and catalog research administration training programs among our members. More than fifty institutions provided data. Criteria include costs, benefits, modality, participation requirements, tracking, and more.

Click below for the Research Administration Training Programs compilation report.

CLICk Here (202) 466-3894 I info@ncura.edu I www.ncura.edu

SELF CARE FOR THE RESEARCH ADMINISTRATOR

What’s in Your Toolbox?

Promoting a Culture of Self Care in Research Administration

By Nelson Seilhan

Author’s Note: The intent of this article is to interpret information for the reader and is not meant to serve as a substitute for medical advice provided by a medical practitioner holding a professional medical degree.

Engaging

It’s 4:45PM on the 5th. NIH proposals are due in fifteen minutes and Professor X sent you final documents just minutes ago. Your phone rings off the hook as you hastily upload documents. Your heart races. Sweat beads on your brow and wets your palms. You are stressed.

Stress is a physiological mechanism that mobilizes the body to respond to a stimulus (Godoy et al., 2018). This same system is activated in response to a wide variety of situations-from imminent physical danger to trivial inconveniences and in between. Many things engage the body’s stress response beyond our direct control.

Once the brain perceives a stressor the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) sends a signal to the adrenal glands to release epinephrine (adrenaline) and other similar hormones (Chu et al., 2023). This rush of adrenaline primes the body to respond quickly to a perceived threat by raising heart rate and blood pressure, sending more oxygen to your tissues, dilating airways, and releasing energy stores in the form of glucose and fats for quick use (Adrenaline Rush, 2017).

When the adrenaline rush ends, the SNS keeps the stress response engaged for as long as the perception of a stressor remains. This is achieved through complex hormonal signals which lead to the secretion of cortisol (Understanding the Stress Response, 2011). Long term elevation of cortisol is associated with many of the negative health effects of chronic stress (High Cortisol Levels, 2018).

Disengaging It’s 5:05PM on the 5th. NIH proposals were due five minutes ago, and Professor X’s proposal was narrowly submitted with just minutes to spare.

Your phone is silent, you have logged off for the day. The adrenaline rush that helped push you over the finish line on that proposal submission has 54

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subsided. For better or worse the threat of a missed deadline is over, but you are still on high alert and feel like you are about to jump out of your skin. The stressor is gone but you have not managed to hit the brakes on your body’s stress response.

A related branch of the nervous system known as the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) can disengage the stress response that is perpetuated by the SNS (Understanding the Stress Response, 2011). The PNS sends bidirectional signals between the brain and body via the vagus nerve, which composes 75% of the fibers in the PNS (McCorry, n.d.; Vagus Nerve, n.d.). The vagus nerve innervates many organs including the heart and lungs, allowing the PNS to transmit signals to the body to reduce heart rate and influence your breathing (Vagus Nerve|Definition, Function, & Facts|Britannica, 2023).

The only reason that any of this relevant to you as a Research Administrator whatsoever is that the PNS can be deliberately activated to promote this calming effect and disengage the stress response. Research demonstrates that certain breathing exercises and activities such as yoga can activate the parasympathetic nervous system and result in improvements to mood, reductions in physiological arousal (heart rate, respiratory rate, etc), and

lower cortisol levels (Balban et al., 2023; Coltrera & Corliss, 2020; Ma et al., 2017). The research suggests the possibility that various other activities traditionally thought to be “relaxing” may directly or indirectly modulate the physiological stress response by way of the PNS. Putting Tools in Your Toolbox For those who have worked in the industry, it likely comes as no surprise that the data suggests that research administration is a very stressful profession with a relatively high level of burnout (Tabakakis et al., 2020). My personal experience in the profession has led me to believe that, more than any other quality, resilience and stress management skills are a better predictor of long-term success as a research administrator than job-specific knowledge. As humans we do not typically have the luxury of deciding when we get stressed, by what, or why. Since we often cannot prevent it from happening, we are left in the position of having control over reaction to it.

In my own self care practice, I have come across tools that work for me and added them to my “toolbox” of various techniques and activities. I train and spar in submission wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to deliberately put myself in hard positions and overcome adversity regularly. I frequently practice breathing techniques such as the cyclic sighing (Balban et al) and Pranayama yoga. I practice cold therapy–ice baths and cold showers–which are purported to activate the vagus nerve among many other things. I take long walks…the list goes on. These are some of the things that I like, the tools in my toolbox. Based on my anticipated and actual stress levels I will use these tools, mixing and matching to construct a self care plan with the goal of mitigating and managing the stresses of work and life in general.

What’s in your toolbox? Do you have a self care plan? It is important to recognize our tools and plans are probably completely different and that is a good thing. Successful strategies for the management of stress will vary just as much as individual people do–so, I do not bring up my tools as recommendations, but as a demonstration of the concept.

Cultural Shift Even the most productive, skilled, and knowledgeable individuals will falter or fail when placed under stress–acute or chronic–that exceeds their capability to mitigate, manage and cope. As colleagues and leaders, we should go out of our way to normalize and promote the concept of stress management as a skill that is fundamental to personal, professional, and organizational success.

Conversely, because the simple admission of being under too much stress to handle is usually a moment of vulnerability, we must also work to destigmatize the position of being “stressed out.” If we are not able to create sufficiently safe spaces and positive relationships with our coworkers, the ability to have open conversations about these issues is compromised and it undermines the team’s ability to support one another. It is also critical that we empathetically validate each other’s experience of stress without judgement–something that might be a major stressor to me may seem trivial to you and that’s perfectly normal as long as we still treat each other with compassion.

Because of our diversity as individuals, and because often times the specifics of our own self care practices can be deeply personal in nature, it behooves us to focus on high level core concepts in professional conversations: 1. Stress is a physiological response that starts in the brain and, through the nervous system, results in effects in the body which are typically

perceived as negative. Just as stress begins with signals from the brain, it is possible for us to intentionally create conditions/stimuli which promote the brain to disengage the stress response.

2. Therefore, to disengage the stress response is a skill which could be improved with a strategic approach and practice. Being good at this skill can improve both our personal and professional lives.

3. Being stressed is a natural part of the human experience, hence there is no shame in it even if social and cultural norms sometimes implicitly or explicitly say otherwise. Further, when self care fails or is insufficient, there is no shame in seeking professional guidance and assistance. Many campuses have mental health resources, such as confidential counseling, available to employees–we should all familiarize ourselves with the available resources we have at hand even if we do not think we will need it.

In developing and practicing a self care plan we do a service to ourselves. By engaging in conversations and discussing the three core concepts above we do a service to each other, to future generations of research administrators, to our organizations, and to the profession as a whole. Cultural shifts happen one interaction at a time. Will you join in the push for the recognition of self care and stress management as a core skill in our success as research administrators, as individuals, and as organizations? N

Nelson Seilhan is a Senior Office of Sponsored Programs Officer at UC Santa Cruz. In this role he supervises a team of pre-award research administrators who are the signing officials for the campus’ research proposals. Nelson holds a BSc in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and during a brief stint in a genomics lab Nelson coordinated the lab’s grant proposals and ended up making the jump to administration.

To date he has 9 years of experience in research administration. Nelson can be reached at nseilhan@ucsc.edu.

References Adrenaline Rush: Symptoms, Causes, at Night, and Anxiety. (2017, November 6). Healthline. www.healthline.com/health/adrenaline-rush Balban, M. Y., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., Weed, L., Nouriani, B., Jo, B., Holl, G., Zeitzer, J. M., Spiegel, D., & Huberman, A. D. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895 Chu, B., Marwaha, K., Sanvictores, T., & Ayers, D. (2023). Physiology, Stress Reaction. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing.www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK541120 Francesca Coltrera, Julie Corliss. (2020). Stress Management: Enhance your well-being by reducing stress and building resilience. Harvard Health Publishing, Special Health Report. www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/stress-management-enhance-your-well-being-by-reducing-stress-and-building-resilience Godoy, L. D., Rossignoli, M. T., Delfino-Pereira, P., Garcia-Cairasco, N., & de Lima Umeoka, E. H. (2018). A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12. www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00127 High Cortisol Levels: Symptoms, Causes, and More. (2018, August 31). Healthline. www.healthline.com/health/high-cortisol-symptoms Ma, X., Yue, Z.-Q., Gong, Z.-Q., Zhang, H., Duan, N.-Y., Shi, Y.-T., Wei, G.-X., & Li, Y.-F. (2017).

The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults.

Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 874. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874 McCorry, L. K. (n.d.). Physiology of the Autonomic Nervous System. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.

Tabakakis, K., Sloane, K., & Besch, J. (2020). Burnout and Its Correlates in Research Administrators.

24(1).

Understanding the stress response. (2011, March 1). Harvard Health.www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response Vagus Nerve. (n.d.). Physiopedia. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from www.physiopedia.com/Vagus_Nerve Vagus nerve | Definition, Function, & Facts | Britannica. (2023, October 1) www.britannica.com/science/vagus-nerve

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2024 Board of Directors

President Kris Monahan Providence College Vice President Denise Moody Lundquist Institute of Biomedical Innovation Treasurer Timothy Schailey Thomas Jefferson University Secretary Diane Hillebrand University of North Dakota Immediate Past President Bryony Wakefield University of Glasgow Executive Director Kathleen Larmett NCURA

Financial Management Committee Timothy Schailey, Treasurer Thomas Jefferson University Kay Gilstrap, Treasurer-Elect Georgia State University Nancy Devino University of Texas Medical Branch LaWanna Duncan University of Florida Darren Howard Moraine Valley Community College

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Eva Bjorndal King’s College London

Geraldine Pierre Boston Children’s Hospital

Emily Devereux University of South Carolina

Lori Ann Schultz University of Arizona

Mary Louise Healy Johns Hopkins University

David Smelser University of Tennessee

Melanie Hebl University of Wisconsin - Madison

Thomas Spencer University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Derick Jones Onyx Clinical Research Group

Ashley Stahle Colorado State University

Laura Kingsley University of Pittsburgh

Lisa Wottrich SRI International

Nancy Lewis University of California - Irvine

Susan Zipkin University of New Hampshire

Nicole Nichols Washington University in St. Louis

Lisa Mosley Yale University

Rebecca Libera Colorado State University

Amanda Snyder University of Washington

Sam Mombou University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Bryony Wakefield University of Glasgow

Denise Moody Lundquist Institute of Biomedical Innovation

Denise Wallen University of New Mexico

Debra Murray University of Maryland, College Park

Julie Ward University of the Sunshine Coast

Kathryn O’Hayre Colorado State University

Professional Development Committee

Amy Ossola-Phillips University of California - San Francisco

Carolyn McNutt University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Natalie Buys, Chair University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Terrice Watson University of Memphis

Abby Guillory, Vice Chair University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Nominating and Leadership Development Committee

Megan Bergeron Texas A&M University

Rosemary Madnick, Chair Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation

Danielle Brown University of Maryland, Baltimore

Robyn Remotigue, Vice Chair University of North Texas HSC at Fort Worth

Carrie Chesbro Stanford University

Erin Bailey University at Buffalo

Jeff Derr Attain Partners

Sylvia Bradshaw Southern Utah University

Liz Grinstead University of Chicago

Jaquion Gholston Stevens Institute of Technology

Rashonda Harris Johns Hopkins University

Jill Mortali Dartmouth College

Dorothy Johnson Gladstones Institutes

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Sarah Robertson Bryn Mawr College Stephanie Rodriguez-Makhlouf University of Central Florida Calleen Roper University of Wisconsin - Madison Aimee Kendall Roundtree Texas State University - San Marcos Trisha Southergill Colorado State University Noelle Strom University of Denver Amanda Tan University of California - Los Angeles Randi Wasik University of Louisville School of Medicine Angela Charboneau Wishon Prisma Health

Select Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Nicole Joyce University of California - San Diego

Bruce Morgan University of California - Irvine

Tanya Blackwell, Chair Seattle Children's Research Institute

Elizabeth Kingsley Yale University

Toni Shaklee Oklahoma State University

Sybile Bayiha, Vice Chair University of Maryland, College Park

Henna Moore University of Helsinki

Education Scholarship Fund Select Committee

Savannah Allshouse Colorado School of Mines

Megan Moore Harvard University

Jennifer Harman, Chair University of Rochester

Paul Below St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Ara Tahmassian Harvard University

Kristi Dorsey SUNY Downstate Medical Center

Robyn Cooper American Heart Association

Edward Wiedemann University of California - San Francisco

Joseph Gibbs University of California - Los Angeles

Ebony Jones University of Chicago

Bruno Woeran Paracelsus Private Medical University

Grace Martey University of Ghana

Kartik Yadav University of California - Irvine

Select Committee on Peer Programs

Luigi Pellegrino Bocconi University

Reem Younis United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education

Tricia Callahan, Chair Emory University

Select Committee on Global Affairs

Mario Medina, Vice Chair University of Kansas Medical Center

Jaroslav Sip, Chair Czech Technical University in Prague

Lois Brako University of Michigan

Annika Glauner, Vice Chair ETH Zurich

Tracy Fraser University of California - Los Angeles

Beatrice Biney-Nyamekye University of Ghana

Rosemary Madnick Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation

Sylvia Ezekilova George Washington University

Joanna Sabal University of Connecticut Charles Shannon Ulster University Amanda Tan University of California - Los Angeles Meaghan Ventura Nationwide Children’s Hospital Jeannine Voll Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania

Crafting Fully Compliant Budgets This publication introduces foundational concepts and best practices in sponsored project budget development.

Topics include: • Sponsor Requirements • Allowable Direct and Indirect Costs on Federal Awards • Cost Sharing • Budget Justification • Salary Limitations • Types of Budgets • Requirements and Nuances for Federal and Non-Federal Awards • Sample Calculations and Explanations

GET IT HERE! https://onlinelearning.ncura.edu/read-and-explore NCURA Magazine

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Why Should IRBs Report Protocol Data Accurately in the IRB Registry?

By Michael Stidham

I

nstitutional Review Boards (IRBs) are required to register with the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) if they will review human subjects research conducted or supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). OHRP uses its IRB registry for compliance oversight activities, distribution of education materials, and fulfillment of data requests for research about IRBs (The Federal Register, 2002). Nearly 5,000 institutions currently register one or more IRBs with OHRP. The current Office of Management and Budget (OMB)-approved IRB registration form (OMB 0990-0279) collects information about IRBs, including a membership roster and the number of protocols the IRB reviews. The IRB reports the approximate number of all active protocols and HHS-supported or -conducted protocols under the IRB’s purview.

For IRB registration, an active protocol is any protocol for which the IRB conducted an initial review or continuing review at a convened meeting or under an expedited review procedure during the preceding 12 months (OHRP, 2022).

In January 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report, GAO-23-104721, INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARDS: Actions Needed to Improve Federal Oversight and Examine Effectiveness (U.S. GAO, 2023). In a sample of IRB registrations, GAO found inaccuracies in institutional reporting of protocol data, and one of GAO’s recommendations calls for ensuring the accuracy of protocol data in OHRP’s IRB registry.

There are benefits to accurately reporting these data. The data inform OHRP’s compliance efforts, which in turn can help OHRP uphold an effective and trustworthy system of human research protections. Additionally, the public can access some IRB registration information online and can request non-public IRB registration information from OHRP. In some cases, researchers have requested IRB registration data as part of efforts to study the IRB enterprise. Policymakers, institutions, and research participants can benefit from these knowledge discovery efforts, for which accurate data are important.

OHRP is currently updating the IRB registration instructions and the registry’s software systems (OHRP, 2022). These changes may help institutions provide more accurate protocol data. Additionally, OHRP is working to adopt a change to the regulations at 45 CFR part 46 subpart A (the Common Rule) to no longer collect an IRB roster (The Federal Register, 2017).

This requires changing the IRB registration form and software systems to remove the membership roster, which also eliminates information collections such as IRB member qualifications and gender. OHRP is prioritizing this change. For now, when institutions want to clarify information about an IRB member beyond what the form permits (e.g., due to the form’s limited gender identity options), institutions can add notes in the “comments” field. The regulations at 45 CFR 46.108(a)(2) and .115(a)(5) continue to 58

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require an IRB to prepare and maintain a current list of IRB members (OHRP, 2022). Even so, eliminating the registration’s roster requirement may reduce administrative burden and improve accuracy of information in the registry.

With improved tools and focused efforts from institutions that operate IRBs, OHRP aims to increase the accuracy of information in the IRB registry. Institutions can assist by reviewing all IRB details to make sure information is current each time they update or renew their IRB registration. Accurate information helps us achieve shared goals to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects in research.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

References Office, U. S. G. A. (2023, January 17). Institutional Review Boards: Actions Needed to Improve Federal Oversight and Examine Effectiveness. Institutional Review Boards: Actions Needed to Improve Federal Oversight and Examine Effectiveness | U.S. GAO. www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104721 Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). (2022, August 4). IRB registration form. HHS.gov. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/register-irbs-and-obtain-fwas/forms/irb-registration-form/index.html Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). (2022, July 1). IRB registration instructions.

HHS.gov. www.hhs.gov/ohrp/register-irbs-and-obtain-fwas/forms/irb-registrationinstructions/index.html Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). (2022, January 7). 45 CFR 46. HHS.gov. www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/index.html The Federal Register. Federal Register: (2017, January 19). Federal policy for the protection of human subjects. www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/19/2017-01058/federal-policy-for-theprotection-of-human-subjects The Federal Register. Federal Register: (2002, March 6). Amendment of statement of organization, functions, and delegations of authority for the office for human research protections. www.federalregister.gov/documents/2002/03/06/02-5303/amendment-of-statement-oforganization-functions-and-delegations-of-authority-for-the-office-of

Michael Stidham is a Program Specialist in the Division of Policy and Assurances, Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. OHRP provides leadership in protecting the rights, welfare, and wellbeing of human subjects in research conducted or supported by HHS. He can be reached at Michael.Stidham@hhs.gov.

More information about IRB Registration, including forms, instructions, and FAQs can be found on the OHRP website at: www.hhs.gov/ohrp/register-irbs-andobtain-fwas/irb-registration/index.html.

Join OHRP’s listserv for the latest new s and updates!

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TRAINING TIPS

Your Training and Educational Programs Are In Good Hands!

By Helene Brazier-Mitouart, Luke Lynch, Abby Guillory, and David Hollingsworth

B

eing a leader comes with having great responsibility towards others. Leadership happens at all levels of our research organizations. It is not reserved just for those who work with defined leadership-level titles. There are many definitions and traits associated with leadership. Kevin Krause, creator of the Leading for Employee Engagement eLearning program for managers shares this thought: “Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, toward the achievement of a goal.” As trainers and educators, we work to support everyone to succeed in our research organizations. We focus our efforts on making the greatest impact possible on our community of research administrators! their worlds. As educators and trainers, we have the privilege of being educational leaders!

1. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, we are strategic thinkers When we are designing courses, seminars and training sessions, we must be strategic in the design of our learning material, in the testing, and in the implementation. We carefully craft our learning material based on our learning objectives, optimize it as we teach it, and keep improving it based on the feedback we collect from our participants and their managers.

Educators and Trainers are faced with limitations of time and resources – just like everyone else. We must decide on which training options to pursue to maximize the return on investment and set educational priorities.

It is also important for us to obtain buy-in from our community and the full support of key stakeholders. As Educators and Trainers, we leverage resources by recruiting subject matter experts from inside and outside the organization. Being strategic ensures that we are setting valuable priorities, working with the resources available, and leading change and growth successfully.

2. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, we are driven by a compelling vision We all have an inspiring vision of what our organization will look like once participants have effectively completed training and have developed the essential skills they need to thrive in their workplace. Our vision must align with the values and goals of our organization, individual units, and individual trainees. We must identify and find effective ways to address needs across the organization.

As educators, we want our trainees to succeed. We are driven to provide them with the tools, knowledge, and inspiration they need to succeed in this profession. It is rewarding to see someone that we had a part in training become a leader in their own right in their organization. Occasionally, if we receive a word of thanks from them, that is gratifying, but if not, we still know that we contributed to helping lead the individual and the organization forward.

3. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, we don’t have the answers to all questions.

Effective leadership often means that leaders recognize that they do not hold all the answers. We can all likely look back to a college course where the instructor was the expert at the front of the room, droning on and on at the front of the classroom or lecture hall, reciting the course textbook, and leaving little room for student interaction or questions.

Alternatively, we may have had a teacher who let students participate in voicing what they want or need to learn, explore, and think critically about the material on their own before giving them any answers. This is known as student-centered learning. In this teaching method, the teacher often acts as a guide, using his or her subject matter expertise to facilitate

teach

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student learning of the content and answer questions. Some other studentcentered teaching strategies include integrating small group discussions and other types of group work into class where students have the chance to think about the material, discuss it, and share their ideas with each other before the teacher provides their input on the topic. So, while it may be important to lecture and tell our learners what they may need to know, as Educators and Trainers, we need to allow participants to come up with their ideas, contribute to the learning process in the sessions, and be active so they take ownership of their learning. In addition, we as Educators and Trainers, can model this to our participants; by acknowledging that we don’t know it all – and that this is okay! – and that we are open to reaching out to colleagues and experts to receive advice from people who have more relevant experience.

4. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, we have a high level of emotional intelligence As Educators and Trainers, we constantly interact with our participants and need to effectively communicate and lead them. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and control our emotions – and their impact on others – as well as being attuned to the emotions of other people. A large part of teaching effectively is being attuned to our learners and being a good listener. Asking them the right questions and understanding their needs helps us, Educators and Trainers determine not only what learners or trainees think they need but what they actually need to succeed.

We’re often faced with trainees who may think they already know what we’re planning to teach or those who feel frustrated trying to learn something new. Educators and trainers must be ready to meet individuals where they are, adapt, and support them through the learning process. As educational leaders, we must be able to support all types of learners and communicate the value of learning to each individual regardless of their preconceived notions.

5. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, we have a great level of resilience.

Have you ever built a sandcastle by the sea? If yes, you know how it feels and what it means to start from scratch every time a wave crashes down your castle. Whether an institution is going through a change in internal systems for grant applications or a large amount of teaching material must be updated because of major updates from important funding agencies, educators need to tap into their core values, their resilience, and their growth mindset to find the internal drive to lead the way through change.

To be successful Educators and Trainers, we need to be resilient and not resist unexpected change. We learn to embrace changes in policy and see it not only as a challenge but as an opportunity to learn and do better. The top administrators in our organizations are busy. As Educators and Trainers, we must take it upon ourselves to subscribe to news feeds from various agencies and organizations to gather the latest changes in policies, regulations, and rules. We must distill this down into easily digestible bites with commentary on how it impacts our organization and share this within our community.

We develop, teach, revise, teach, and revise again. As leaders, we must be adaptable and work through changes quickly and effectively to ensure

the most benefit to our organizations. Being agile with a growth mindset is essential to our activity and the success of our trainees.

6. Educators and Trainers, as leaders, are always in learning mode.

Successful Educators and Trainers are continuous learners. Every day we are open to learning, discussing, and understanding things better. We were subject matter experts yesterday, and we are again students today, eager to learn something new. Why? Because we are driven to help others succeed, and for this, we are ready to explore and learn more about a new pedagogical technique, a software that could facilitate asynchronous learning activities or grant application guidelines to a funding agency that unexpectedly many researchers would like to apply to in the next few months. Educators and Trainers are simply wired this way.

As Educational Leaders, we will close with one inspiring quote from Simon Sinek, a well-known speaker on business leadership, and author of Start with Why (2009): “The joy of leadership comes from seeing others achieve more than they thought they were capable of.” What an honor for us to be your Educational Leaders. You are bringing so much joy to us. Thank you all. N References Kruse, K. (2013, April 9). What is leadership? Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership Sinek, S. (n.d.). Best quotes by Simon Sinek All in one place. The Optimism Company. https://simonsinek.com/quotes/#leadership

Helene Brazier-Mitouart, PhD, is the Education Manager in the Office of Education and Training in Research Administration at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM), Cornell University. She is proud to be an educator supporting research administrators to thrive in their careers in Research Administration by teaching them the knowledge and skills they need. She is also orchestrating a Mentoring Program for WCM Research Administrators. Helene is an enthusiastic NCURA member and can be contacted at HEB2020@med.cornell.edu.

Luke Lynch, MEd, is Assistant Training Coordinator in Sponsored Projects Administration at the University of Minnesota. In his role, he develops and teaches courses on various topics in research administration and helps manage a curriculum certification program. He is an active member of NCURA and has presented at several of its regional meetings. Luke may be reached at lync0172@umn.edu.

Abby Guillory, MLIS, CRA, is the Assistant Vice President for Research Enhancement at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Abby is an active NCURA volunteer, nationally and regionally, through her presentations, publications, and committee work.She also serves as NCURA Traveling Workshop Faculty. She can be reached at Abby.Guillory@UTRGV.edu.

David Hollingsworth, CRA, is the Director of Professional Development and Outreach in Sponsored Research Services, Texas A&M University. In this role, he implements and maintains a broad array of research administration-related learning opportunities and resources and coordinates review sessions for the CRA. David can be reached at dhollingsworth@tamu.edu.

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NCURA Regional Corner REGION I New England

REGION II Mid-Atlantic

www.ncuraregioni.org

www.ncuraregion2.org

www.facebook.com/ncuraregioni

www.facebook.com/groups/ncuraregionii

Region I is back on track with an excellent year under the leadership of Stacy Riseman (2023 Chair), Jessica McDonough (Secretary), Randi Wasik (Treasurer) and Jill Mortali (Region I National Board Representative), we want to thank them along with the Committee Chairs and Advisory Board for their service to Region I. This year’s regional officers are Nick Fisher (Chair), Stacy Riseman (Immediate Past-Chair), Lana Metayer (Treasurer), Brandi Glover (Secretary), Geraldine Pierre (National Board Representative). The 2024 Advisory Board will consist of the elected officers and the Committee Chairs including: Amanda Humphrey (Curriculum), Caitlin Crowley (Communications), Curtis Van Slyke (Volunteer), Karen Griffin (DEI), Jessica McDonough (Professional Development), Amy Ellis (Governance), Beth Kingsley (Awards) and Pattie McNulty (Sponsorship).

The new elected officers for 2025 are Kyle Lewis (Chair-elect), Karen Marston (Secretary-elect), and Meredith Albuquerque (Treasurer-elect).

We had an outstanding Spring Meeting at the Sheraton in Portsmouth New Hampshire. There were 198 registrants for the meeting and an additional 13 participants as Vendors/Career Center representatives.

The “FUN” theme of the meeting translated well into reality!

The year included two RADG meetings. The first, “Strategies for Increasing Indirect Cost Recovery with Non-Federal Sponsors” on June 8, 2023.

The second, “De-Mystifying NIH's Data Management and Sharing Policy: Tools, Tips, and Tricks” was hosted on September 27, 2023. Both meetings were well received by the membership. Special thanks to Roseann Luongo and Jess Regan for their leadership in the planning and execution of the RADGs for the Region.

Three workshops were held in the fall of 2023. Essentials Workshop, hosted by Brandi Glover and Tom Dillon was an in-person event, held at Partners in Boston. The Pre and Post-award Workshops hosted by Amy Ellis and Rady Rogers were held virtually.

The 2024 Spring Meeting will be held at the Westin Harborside Hotel in Portland Maine from May 6-8, 2024. Leading the Program Committee will be 2024 Chair-elect, Kyle Lewis. Stacy Riseman and Saira Valley are serving as Co-Chairs. The theme of the meeting is “SUIT UP! Advance your RA Super Powers.”

Programmatically we look forward to the 2024 RADG meetings under the creative leadership of Amanda Humphrey.

Lastly, we are excited to hear from the membership; we’d like to know what members would like to see offered within Region I. We encourage the membership to get involved. A strong membership means a strong Region I. Nicholas Fisher is the 2024 Chair of Region I and serves as the Research Administrative Director at Boston Children’s Hospital Department of Urology. He can be reached at Nicholas.Fisher@childrens.harvard.edu.

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Cheers to the New Year Region II! 2023 was an exciting adventure for all of us and I would like to thank the Steering Committee for all their hard work. Many thanks to the outgoing officers and committee chairs for their hard work, dedication, vision, and guidance: Lamar Oglesby (Chair), Adam Greenberg (Immediate Past Chair), Meena Ilyas (Secretary), Chea Smith/Charles Bartunek (PDC) and Adriel Villegas-Estrada (Region II Meeting Program Committee Chair).

I am excited to move the Region into 2024 with my fellow Officers: Lamar Oglesby (Immediate Past Chair), Adriel Villegas-Estrada (ChairElect), Cassie Moore (Secretary), Chea Smith (Treasurer) and Meena Ilyas (Treasurer-Elect). In addition to our elected officers, I welcome the following committee chairs to join us on the Steering Committee: Catherine Parker (PDC); Margarita Cardona (DEI); Mary Louise Healy (Mentor Me); Laura Kingsley (Regionally Elected National Board Member): Charles Bartunek (Program Committee); Rashonda Harris (Member at Large); Albana Cejne (Member at Large); and Adam Greenberg (Member at Large); and Rebecca O’Brien (Member at Large). I look forward to collaborating with this leadership team as we continue to build our existing programs and take on new initiatives.

2024 will be another productive year filled with virtual and in-person PDC workshops, virtual brown bags, DEI speakers/activities/events, networking events, new member orientations, and other member engagement activities. To accomplish all of this and more, we rely on the outstanding volunteers from our membership. If you are looking to get involved within the Region, contact Chair-Elect, Adriel Villegas-Estrada at adv2007@med.cornell.edu or myself, and we can work with you to find a volunteer opportunity that matches your interests and talents!

As part of our meeting rotation, 2024 will take us to the Kimpton Hotel Monaco in Pittsburgh, PA. More information will be emailed soon and available on the Region II website.

Watch for announcements on the website, Facebook, and in e-blasts as we move forward into the year. Additionally, I ask members to: • Join our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/groups/ncuraregionii • Join the Region II Community on NCURA's Collaborate: https://collaborate.ncura.edu/communities/community-home?communitykey=8e4f210c-9468-4adc-a1bd-18a950e5be70&tab=groupdetails • Complete your NCURA Profile: www.ncura.edu/Login/tabid/128/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2fMembershipVolunteering%2fMyDashboard.aspx Please reach out to me if you have any suggestions for programming, networking opportunities or events/activities. Best wishes for the new year! I hope to see you (virtually or in-person) soon!

Sandy Collier is the 2024 Chair of Region II and serves as Director of Operations and Finance at the University of Maryland, College Park. She can be reached at collier@umd.edu.

REGION III Southeastern

REGION IV Mid-America

www.ncuraregioniii.com

www.ncuraregioniv.com

www.facebook.com/ncuraregioniii

www.facebook.com/pages/Ncura-Region-IV/ 134667746605561

Happy New Year from Region III! As we move into 2024, we hope that this message finds you and your loved ones healthy, happy, and ready to tackle a new year!

We hope to be able to see many of our members at our 2024 Spring Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in May. Our chair-elect, Laneika Musalini (Columbus State University), her meeting co-chair Tanta Myles (Georgia Institute of Technology), and our planning committee are working with the Westin Fort Lauderdale to plan a fun and informative meeting with as many of our flamingo family in attendance as possible.

A draft program as well as information about registration and lodging will be available on the Region III website (ww.ncuraregioniii.com/springmeeting/hotel-travel). We would like to thank our program committee for their hard work putting our meeting together: Compliance: Julie Cole (Clemson University) Departmental: Celeste Rivera-Nunez (University of Central Florida) and Shekinda Ward (Vanderbilt University) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Kendra Ellis (Duke University) and Moniqua Holton (American Heart Association) eRA: Jennifer Mills (University of Alabama) Federal: Steve Koogler (Emory University) and Ford Simmons (Medical University of South Carolina) Post-Award: Xiaowen Ma (Emory University) Pre-Award: Melissa Freudenberger (University of Tennessee-Knoxville) PUI: Tracy Louder (Auburn University, Montgomery) Research Development: Dr. Gwendolyn Harris (Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University/Florida State University) Senior: Dr. Tamara Hill (Morehouse School of Medicine) Workshops: Tolise Dailey (Duke University) The keynote speaker for this year’s meeting is still being finalized.

Stay tuned for details!

Rebecca Wessinger is the Region III Secretary and serves as the Assistant Director of Research Development for the University of South Carolina, College of Engineering and Computing. She can be reached at rineharr@mailbox.sc.edu.

Happy New Year from Region IV! I hope everyone enjoyed a restful holiday season, finding moments to relax and reflect. This time of year, there’s a natural feeling of new beginnings, full of promise and opportunity.

Many of us are setting New Year’s resolutions to make this year better than the last.

As we enter 2024, the theme of our upcoming Region IV Spring Meeting, “Reset, Recharge, Renew,” feels particularly fitting. As research administrators, juggling work-life balance in this post-pandemic world, we can all use a refresh. Let’s hit the reset button, recharge our energy, and renew our commitment to growth and collaboration. Please plan to join us in Ann Arbor, MI, from April 28 to May 1, 2024, at the Kensington Hotel!

This year’s location is particularly meaningful to me as my institution, the University of Michigan, is based there. As Region IV Chair, I feel privileged to welcome the rest of Region IV to my professional hometown.

Ann Arbor is truly a hidden gem, with a vibrant research administration community, and I'm genuinely excited to share it with the rest of Region IV! If your travel budget is limited, we offer the following travel awards: • Regional/National Travel Award—($1,500/$2,000) to support travel to the Region IV Spring Meeting and the Annual National Meeting.

• John Philipps Travel Award—($1,500) Mentoring Our Own (MOO) mentees are encouraged to apply for travel support to the Region IV Spring meeting.

As always, you can find more information about the awards we offer by visiting https://ncuraregioniv.com/awardshonors.html.

And in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, I encourage you all to consider stepping into new roles within the region – join a committee, run for the board, or volunteer at the Spring Meeting. By doing so, you not only contribute to our community but also open the door to new opportunities for yourself! These are all fantastic ways to meet your Region IV colleagues. For more detailed information about all things Region IV, be sure to visit our website at www.ncuraregioniv.com.

Here's to a year of embracing new beginnings, collectively resetting, recharging our energy, and renewing our commitment to excellence.

Let’s make this year better than the last. I hope to see you in Ann Arbor!

Julie Olivero is the Chair of Region IV and serves as Research Administration Manager in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. She can be reached at jolivero@umich.edu.

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Regional Corner continued REGION V Southwestern

REGION VI Western

www.ncuraregionv.com

www.ncuraregionvi.org

www.facebook.com/ncuraregionv

www.facebook.com/groups/729496637179768

The beginning of the year brings a renewal of energy, a hopeful spirit, and full throttle vigor as we learn to Stand in Own Light in 2024. Let’s celebrate our authentic selves, reignite our passions, rejuvenate our souls, and say yes to something that pushes us out of our comfort zone. I wish our NCURA membership prosperity and health as we shine brightly throughout the year.

Staying true to our 2024 theme, let’s shine the spotlight on two stellar volunteer contributors, Keith Simms and Mona Bisase, that provide an incredible cost saving measure to our region by providing IT assistance ranging from NCURA App, troubleshooting throughout the conference, room projector and presentation set up and so much more. Our region appreciates Keith and Mona’s efforts and contributions.

Special congratulations to our latest MMP mentee graduates and their mentors: Cristy Garza / Jamie Maiden, Courtney Hoover / Amanda Lindeman, Denell Orellana / Jennifer Cahn, Haley Perko-Salinas / LeAnn Forsberg and Sarah Romak / Dawn Underwood.

We are so pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas Spencer received the Region V Distinguished Service Award. Thomas serves as a catalyst for adding to the rich tapestry of our region. Thomas’ unapologetic commitment to NCURA is demonstrated through his progressive leadership roles.

Always willing to help, listen and guide, Thomas has a penchant for serving as advocate, mentor, and sponsor for future leaders in NCURA. While we know that Thomas is just getting started, we are thrilled to see all the amazing impactful changes still to come. Please join me in applauding Thomas on reaching this extraordinary career milestone.

As our regional leadership transitions roles, I cannot think of a more apt time to highlight the extensive contributions of 2023 Immediate Past Chair, Tribbie Grimm. Tribbie fearlessly shouldered the bulk of our region’s responsibilities for an exhaustive period. Instrumentally, Tribbie led our region in securing significant sponsor support that will forever change the landscape and offerings within the region. We appreciate her efforts and her vault of regional knowledge.

I cordially invite our Region V membership to participate in our 2024 Lunch and Learn Series. Our monthly offering occurs on the 2nd Wednesday. For more information, www.ncuraregionv.com. Please contact our Education Coordinator, Vanessa Lopez at vanessancuraregionv@gmail.com, if you are interested in presenting and standing in your light.

Sheleza Mohamed, FACHE, MBA, MHA, CRA, CFRA, CPRA, is Region V Chair and serves as National Director, Government Grants Administration at the American Heart Association. She can be reached at sheleza.mohamed@heart.org.

Happy 2024 Region VI! As your 2024 Chair, I want to thank you all for this opportunity to serve. As we embark on the new year with a new team, goals and reinvigorated energy, let’s reflect back on the amazing year our region had in 2023. Under the leadership of our amazing past Chair Jennifer Cory, NCURA held its first meeting in Alaska! We had a strong turnout, and many members traveled the long distance for the excellent program and to experience the beauty of Alaska.

2023 brought us a significant increase in membership, a highly popular and successful lunchtime education series, our largest LeadMe graduation class and our first leadership retreat in Portland where the team met in person to debrief in 2023, discuss changes and set goals for 2024.

As we start working on our 2024 goals, we look forward to PRA/FRA in Honolulu, the 66th annual meeting of the membership in D.C. and our joint regional meeting with Region VII in Albuquerque, NM. We would like to thank our amazing volunteers who have made our region what it is today. Thanks to officers who are rolling off: Executive officers Jennifer Cory (Chair), Zachary Gill (Secretary), Vanessa Azevedo, (Treasurer) and the representatives in our committees: Kevin Stewart (Marketing & Communications Committee Chair), Csilla Csaplar (Nominating and Elections Chair), Theresa Caban (Immediate Past Chair), Jaclyn Lucas and Denise Moody (at-large Regional Advisory Committee RAC members). Thank you all for your invaluable service!

Also, a big thanks to our continuing volunteers serving the second year of their term Kari Vandergust (at-large RAC Member) and Lisa Wottrich (Board of Directors representative for National).

Congratulations to our new volunteers! Please welcome: Matthew Mitchener (Chair-elect), Cara Winnewisser (Secretary-elect), Sandra Logue (at-large RAC Member), Tanya Blackwell, (at-large RAC Member), Shuna McMichael (at-large RAC Member), Megan Dietrich (Marketing & Communications Committee Chair), Megan Dietrich (Marketing & Communications Committee Chair), Nancy Lewis (newly appointed Board of Directors representative for National), and Denise Moody (National Vice-President for 2024 and National NCURA President in 2025).

Thank you, Nancy, Lisa and Denise, for representing Region VI! If you are interested in becoming involved and serving our Region, please contact us! The volunteer opportunities webpage has the information but please reach out! We would love to meet you!

Thank you to all our volunteers and members for your strong support, time and contributions!

Looking forward to an amazing 2024!

Jason Park is the 2024 Region VI Chair and serves as Director of Contracts and Grants for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

He can be reached at jpark@uci.edu.

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REGION VII Rocky Mountain

REGION VIII International

www.ncuraregionvii.org

www.ncuraintlregion.org

www.facebook.com/groups/NCURARegionVII

Happy New Year, Jackalopes!

I’m excited to begin 2024 as Chair of Region VII and to be working with our volunteers and new officers to support our Rocky Mountain Region.

As we begin the new year, I’m reflecting on last year’s accomplishments, including: • Increasing our social media presence and continuing our quarterly newsletter thanks to our Communications Committee • Continuing to offer free professional development virtual sessions under the leadership of our Professional and Education Development Committee • Our DE&I Committee taking action to move some of our Region’s DE&I initiatives forward • Co-hosting the first ever Regional Meeting in Alaska with Region VI • Awarding our third Regional Volunteer Award to Ashley Stahle, Associate Director of Sponsored Programs, Colorado State University This year, we’re looking forward to putting outcomes from our November 2023 strategic planning session into action – better defining and transitioning leadership roles and engaging volunteers – and continuing our committees’ amazing work. Planning is underway for the 2024 Regional Meeting in Albuquerque, NM, September 22-25, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Albuquerque. We’re excited to return to the Land of Enchantment for the first time since 2009!

Stay connected to the Region: Join our Facebook page and the Region VII community on NCURA Collaborate or visit our regional website: www.ncuraregionvii.org.

Want to volunteer? Contact Volunteer Coordinator Garrett Steed, garrett.steed@cuanschutz.edu. Garrett will be able to advise on the various opportunities available.

Alexa Van Dalsem is the 2024 Region VII Chair and currently serves as the Interim Director of the Office of Contracts and Grants at the University of Colorado Boulder.

She can be reached at alexa.vandalsem@colorado.edu.

Happy New Year, Region VIII members!

Greetings to you all from Dublin, Ireland. I am very excited to be serving as the 2024 Chair. On behalf of the Executive Committee, I wish to take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to always work with the best interest of our membership at the center of everything we do. We are already planning some new initiatives and a programme of events for this year, and we hope to connect with as many of you as possible over the coming months.

I would like to thank all the volunteers who are departing our Region’s committees: Makram Halawani, outgoing Past Chair, Beatrice Sakyibea Biney Nyamekye, outgoing Volunteer Coordinator, Isabelle Leung, outgoing Interim Secretary, and lastly, Dr Bella Blaher, and Julie Ward, who are both concluding stints as At Large Members on our Region’s Advisory Board. A warm welcome to our new members, too: Tine Heylen, KU Leuven, joins as Chair-Elect, Ellen Thompson, LEES Accountants, joins as TreasurerElect, Pankaj Gupta, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, joins as Secretary, and Carrie Manning, University of Strathclyde, joins as Volunteer Coordinator. Eva Björndal has been re-elected as National Board Member, and we will all continue to benefit from her expertise and knowledge as a Region VIII Advisory Board member. Finally, a special thanks to Elly Pineda for her excellent stewardship as 2023 Chair. Many of our achievements over this past year have been realized by the stellar leadership she has shown.

In November 2023, our Executive Committee, along with representatives from the Advisory Board, met in London, UK, to develop a new strategy for our Region. We are indebted to NCURA’s Executive Director, Kathleen Larmett, for her support, guidance, and experience in helping us to achieve this feat. Strategic Plan 2024-2028 was drafted with input from our members following a consultation process in Fall 2023. The next four years will have a renewed focus on our core values: professional growth, inclusion, community, integrity, transparency and openness, and collaboration. We strive to uphold these values while also celebrating our diversity – both geographically and culturally – as a region.

We are always looking for new volunteers, and we encourage you to get involved and stay connected with your peers. If you have not already done so, please check our LinkedIn page to find information on upcoming events. You can also contact us at any time by email (ncura.regionviii@gmail.com).

Joey Gaynor is the Chair of Region VIII and he serves as Senior Research Funding Specialist at Trinity College Dublin. He can be reached at joey.gaynor@tcd.ie.

NCURA Magazine

I Jan/Feb 2024

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Scientists Cite Need For More Research On Leadership Development In Adolescence Period of rapid development in adolescence offers chance to cultivate, diversify leaders of tomorrow

reta Thunberg, David Hogg and Malala Yousafzai, all teenagers when their activism caught the world’s attention, are proof that leadership develops well before adulthood.

As essential as they are, and as complex the challenges they face as tomorrow’s leaders, scientists do not understand the traits and experience that define young leaders. While there is clear evidence that leaders blossom early, little research exists about leadership development in adolescence.

The paper “Understanding the Leaders of Tomorrow: The Need to Study Leadership in Adolescence” makes a case for adding a multidisciplinary developmental perspective to leadership research. The study was published today (Nov. 9) by Perspectives on Psychological Science.

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Getty Images

Greta Thunberg speaks during the climate strike march in October 2021 in Milan, Italy.

People like Thunberg are proof that leadership develops well before adulthood.

“The rapid development of personality, peer relationships, values and vocational identity during this period, make adolescence an optimal time for developing leadership potential,” said Jennifer Tackett, a clinical psychologist at Northwestern University and the paper’s corresponding author.

Tackett is director of the Personality Across Development (PAD) lab, and a professor of psychology at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern.

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Arguing that an understanding of youth leadership would have immediate application for educators, parents, policy makers and employers, the authors propose bringing together expertise from different areas of psychological science to study early leadership, how it emerges, develops and influences leadership ability as adults.

They point out opportunities for taking concepts from the study of leadership in adults and extending them to adolescents, while simultaneously leveraging existing adolescent-focused research on peer influence and cognitive and behavioral development to form a more nuanced model of how leadership develops through life stages.

They also suggest new avenues of research including studying the environments adolescent leaders occupy, such as athletics, social justice efforts, extracurriculars and social media, to better understand how early leadership takes shape.

In addition to the benefits research on leadership development in youth could have on society, it could also benefit the individual youth by helping them form a broader sense of their own leadership identity and an enhanced understanding of their own personal strengths and capacity, according to the authors.

Other goals of the research are to develop leadership interventions to maximize potential and facilitate better diversification of the leadership pipeline.

“We think that a lot of great leadership potential is getting lost as youth develop in the context of cumulative, multilayered systemic barriers, and that looking earlier in life may be a key to harnessing and fostering this potential well ahead of these later outcomes,” Tackett said. “Everyone stands to benefit from improving leadership skill and effectiveness in the leaders of tomorrow.”

Other leadership scientists contributing to the paper include researchers from Cleveland State University, University of Southern California, Wayne State University, University of Toronto, Ghent University, University of Exeter and Rice University. N

For the full article visit: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/11/scientists-cite-need-formore-research-on-leadership-development-in-adolescence-2

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH ADMINISTRATORS

Rediscover

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TH

Y OUR Journey

ANNUAL MEETING

August 4-7, 2024 | Washington, DC Happy New Year! The Program Committee for NCURA’s 66th Annual Meeting (“AM66”) is working hard to put together a program that continues to meet the needs of its membership.

Our theme, Rediscover Y-Our Journey, recognizes “Your” own and “Our” journey together. Whether you have been in the field for 6 months or 26 years, changes are constantly forcing us to shift both personal and professional plans and goals. In any given day, month, or year, we may encounter professional shifts with new regulations, technology, or staffing.

As we reel from those changes, our personal lives face changes within our communities, our own goals, and the constant balancing act between our personal and professional identities. We are often challenged to reevaluate ourselves, our relationships, and our work, both individually and as part of our larger community. Such challenges offer us opportunities to thrive in exciting new ways. During NCURA’s 66th Annual Meeting, we ask you to rediscover your personal journey and consider how that journey will impact our journey together in the profession of research administration.

Mark your calendars and join us in Washington, D.C. for NCURA’s 66th Annual Meeting!

Stay tuned for more information in the next NCURA Magazine or visit www.ncura.edu.

NCURA CALENDAR OF EVENTS TRAVELING WORKSHOPS • Departmental Research Administration Workshop June 24-26, 2024 Las Vegas, NV • Level I: Fundamentals of Sponsored Projects Administration Workshop June 24-26, 2024 Las Vegas, NV • Level II: Sponsored Projects Administration– Critical Issues in Research Administration Workshop June 24-26, 2024 Las Vegas, NV

REGIONAL MEETINGS NATIONAL CONFERENCES • Financial Research Administration (FRA) Conference March 18-19, 2024 Honolulu, HI • Pre-Award Research Administration (PRA) Conference March 21-22, 2024 Honolulu, HI • Annual Meeting August 4-7. 2024 Washington, DC

• Region I (New England) May 6-8, 2024 Portland, ME • Region III (Southeastern) May 4-8, 2024 Ft. Lauderdale, FL • Region IV (Mid-America) April 28-May 1, 2024 Ann Arbor, MI • Region V (Southwestern) November 3-6, 2024 Corpus Christi, TX • Region VI (Western)/Region VII (Rocky Mountain) September 22-25, 2024 Albuquerque, NM

ONLINE TUTORIALS—10 week programs • A Primer on Clinical Trials • A Primer on Federal Contracting • A Primer on Intellectual Property in Research Agreements • A Primer on Subawards

For further details and updates visit our events calendar at www.ncura.edu.