The Long and Winding Road: Career Pathways to Leadership in Research Administration
(A thought piece based on my view of Leadership as Service, based on my 40 year experience as a Professor, Department Chair, Federal Government Program Manager and Deputy Office Director, and Vice Chancellor for Research.)
It is unlikely that most graduate students, embarking on their research career, aspire to become senior research officers. At that stage of their career, they dream of becoming tenured professors, renowned scholars, and perhaps even Nobel prize winners. But for many academic researchers who progress up the academic ladder, this is one administrative job that may be the most appealing. If you find this surprising, then consider it in its proper context of the culmination of service to the institution and the research community. An astute individual will realize that their career success is due, in part, to others who have helped them on their way. Giving back through leadership service, by taking on a job like this, is one way to say “thank you!”
To illustrate the point, consider the following “typical” career progression for an academic researcher:
As a graduate student, the sine qua non of your pursuit of a Ph.D. is to perform original research. In many fields of science and engineering this is done within a group, under the guidance of a senior research mentor. You may advance your own research by working with and mentoring undergraduates. You will almost certainly depend on your peers within the research group for feedback and support, as you will your dissertation advisor and your thesis committee. While your research must be original, it won’t advance independently of more junior helpers, peers, and senior mentors. You are already learning that success in research “takes a village.” But who founded the village? Who are its elders?
What things change when you complete your Ph.D. and become a post-doctoral researcher? You graduate to a more extensive mentorship and leadership role for yourself, directing the work of junior graduate students, but still under the watchful eye of your faculty mentor.
As you advance to become a tenure-track Assistant Professor, you will now be expected to establish your own research agenda and your own group to realize it. You are responsible for finding patrons to fund your work — whether Federal agencies, companies, foundations, philanthropists, or even your own university. You must establish the culture of your research group, and ensure that your undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, and staff are working harmoniously, and following the policies for ethical research and compliance. In other words, you become much more aware of how research is funded and the policies that oversee its operation. Whether you know it or not, these are well aligned with the responsibilities of a senior research officer, but of course, at the institutional level.
Many forms of research, particularly in engineering and science, require the expertise of several faculty members and their groups. As an Associate Professor, with tenure behind you, this is a great context to engage with other colleagues as your research ambitions grow. You can advance your research agenda in a bigger project than you might be able to successfully organize yourself. Somebody needs to lead the project and arrange for its more extensive fundraising. This is an opportunity for you to observe the so-called “Rainmaker” in action.
One day, perhaps at the level of you becoming a mid-career Full Professor, it is your turn to become the Rainmaker. This means assuming leadership in forming a team to undertake a major project and securing its funding. Presumably this is an ambitious project whose aspirations transcend what you can accomplish with your own research group, bringing to bear multiple disciplines to make a significant advance. As Team Principal Investigator (PI), you must think beyond yourself to encompass the goals and visions of the team, and support and mentor its more junior members, which now include junior faculty as well as your own postdocs and students.
As you advance to the more senior stages of your career, you may have the opportunity to assume a position as leader in the research or broader academic communities. Perhaps you step up to become an Institute Director or a Department Chair. In this role, you are responsible for finding resources for your faculty colleagues and mentoring them in their advancement. Once again, this means broadening your concerns beyond your own research group or team, to a much broader community at your institution.
At the next stage, you may become a senior leader in the national or international research community. Perhaps you accept a position in a government research funding agency or assume a leadership role in a professional society. This could put you in position to advocate certain policies and priorities for research, or even develop research programs that will enable others to execute their research.
Perhaps your next step is to return to academia. You are now a senior professor with much experience conducting research, organizing teams, securing funding, administering departments or institutes, and running programs or wielding influence at government agencies or within professional societies. With this background, you are now an ideal candidate to become a senior leader in your campus’s research community as its Senior Research Officer. You will have responsibility for a broad portfolio of research institutes, core facilities, new initiatives, and seed grant programs. You will oversee the vast set of offices that support research, including sponsored projects, intellectual property, export control, and human and animal subjects institutional review boards (IRBs). You will have a role to play in representing research to outside constituencies and patrons, including State and Federal Governments, Foundations, and Philanthropists. Your experience, gained over decades, in formulating research, working in teams and leading them, advocating for research, mentoring others, leading academic and other organizations at a variety scales, has prepared you to assume this responsibility.
Your younger self may not have aspired to this as the pinnacle of your career, but in a real sense, everything you have done to advance your academic career to its senior stage has prepared you for this responsibility.
