Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Oct 24:14:1295255.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1295255. eCollection 2023.

Building our research administrator workforce as our clinical and translational research programs become increasingly complex

Calvo Kayla #  1 , Phillips Jennifer #  1 , Burks Sandra  1 , Karen C Johnston  1   2
Affiliations

Building our research administrator workforce as our clinical and translational research programs become increasingly complex

Calvo Kayla et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Research administrators (RA's) are critical members of the research workforce. For purposes of this article, research administrators are personnel who support the development, compliance, management, and financial oversight of sponsored research. There are currently very few institutional career development and mentoring programs available to research administrators. Recruitment and retention of quality research administrators has been especially challenging across the country in recent years. Methods: In an effort to address this gap in training and to increase recruitment and retention, the integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia (iTHRIV), a collaborative NIH-NCATS funded Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) hub, has developed an innovative program of workforce development and mentoring for research administrators. This article provides an overview of one institutional training and development initiative, the Research Administration Program for Training and Resources (RAPTR). RAPTR provides training, resources and mentoring to develop a Community of Practice. Results: The program provides a forum where research administrators can share ideas, practices, and challenges. Discussion: This manuscript describes the benefits and lessons learned from our early experience in this program. We highlight selected components that may be generalizable to other institutions and describe individualized components, which require local policies and processes.

Keywords: mentoring; professional development; research administration; research team science; workforce development.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
RAPTR portal orientation series.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
RAPTR portal proposal submission series.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Initial RAMP UP mentor cohort baseline experience.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Mentor training workshop survey results.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
RAMP UP initial cohort mentee baseline experience.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
RAMP UP end of year survey.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
RAPTR program offerings.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aguenza B. B., Som A. P. M. (2012). Motivational factors of employee retention and engagement in organizations. Int. J. Adv. Manag. Econ. 1 (6), 88–95.
    1. Ami Communities of Practice (2023). Communities of practice | COP AMI. Available at: https://cop.montessori-ami.org/community-of-practice (Accessed August 4, 2023).
    1. Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2022). Introduction to communities of practice - wenger-trayner. Available at: https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ (Accessed August 4, 2023).
    1. Harris P. A., Taylor R., Minor B. L., Elliott V., Fernandez M., O’Neal L., et al. REDCap Consortium (2019). The REDCap consortium: building an international community of software platform partners. J. Biomed. Inf. 95, 103208. Epub 2019 May 9. PMID: 31078660; PMCID: PMC7254481. 10.1016/j.jbi.2019.103208 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Harris P. A., Taylor R., Thielke R., Payne J., Gonzalez N., Conde J. G. (2009). Research electronic data capture (REDCap)--a metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support. J. Biomed. Inf. 42 (2), 377–381. Epub 2008 Sep 30. PMID: 18929686; PMCID: PMC2700030. 10.1016/j.jbi.2008.08.010 - DOI - PMC - PubMed