Abstract

As RMA professionals, we’ve studied the technical, financial, and legal aspects of an action. We’ve scrutinized missions, open calls, and evaluation processes and we focus on knowing more of what it means to be in this line of work as we build more networks and create more projects.
As time passes, with still much to establish about the RMA profession, one thing has been increasingly more clear: how do we train our teams for people management, or, better, how do we adapt people management skills into researcher management skills and has that become more important in recent years?
Responsible research movements, together with the increase in competition and the irrefutability of the impact necessity and future uncertainty have led us to focus on the more personal aspect of the RMA profession. Managing a researcher means expectations, ambition, and the make-it-or-break-it of someone’s career in a way that deeply impacts our institutions. As the RMA profession has its specifics, so does the way we manage the people behind the proposals: knowing that the support they need at each stage of their career is different and should be addressed, by bringing innovation into the way we think about our processes and by supporting their role in contributing to change in the world.
One aspect has been including the RMAs in the boarding process from the start, giving them an overview of who will be working with them in the future, and making them aware and contributing to the way we develop researchers from the very first day. The other is providing RMA offices with technological skills and critical innovative thinking where we know that Business and Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics can soon substitute part of our work. At the end of the day, what is our main contribution if not with the people to whom or with who we work– keeping them engaged in the societal challenges and focusing on solutions, be the leaders within the leads.