Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) - a snapshot of research administrators and their skills from around the world.

Abstract

The Research Administration As A Profession (RAAAP) project is funded under the NCURA Research Program for the period February 2016 through January 2018. It is led by Simon Kerridge, University of Kent and Stephanie F. Scott, Columbia University. The project has surveyed research administrators worldwide to a) give a global snapshot of the profession, and b) determine those skills which are most sought after in research administration leaders. The aim being to provide leaders with guidance on how best to support and develop their staff in their careers, and for junior staff to be able to map their own professional development.

The online questionnaire survey was open during the late spring and summer of 2016 and closed on 7th September 2016. We asked a number of associations around the work to canvass their members on our behalf, and are grateful to ACU (Commonwealth), ARMA (UK), ARMS (Australasia), BRAMA (Brazilian), CARA (Canadian), EARMA* (European), NCURA (USA), NORDP (USA), RMAN-J (Japanese), SARIMA (Southern African), SRAI (USA), and WARIMA (Western African) for reaching out to their a combined membership of approximately 20,000. It should be noted that EARMA cascaded this to other members of the Leiden Group (including the Austrian, Danish, Finnish, German, Icelandic, and Norwegian associations) of European associations of research managers and administrators.

Overall 2,691 responses were received, including 941 from the USA, 243 from Canada, 453 from the UK, 339 from the rest of Europe, 336 from Oceania, and 185 from other countries around the world.

Each completed response provided us with 282 data points aimed at answering the two questions.

The poster will provide graphics and charts summarising and discussing our main findings.

Simon Kerridge, Director of Research Services, University of Kent, UK

Stephanie F Scott, Director of Communications and Outreach, Columbian University, NY, USA