Abstract

Based on our experiences working within the structure of a research centre composed of many different educational institutions in Ireland, we have witnessed different approaches to the manner in which Post-Award Research Managers are employed and managed. While budget can be ring-fenced for Pre-Award Research Management teams to ensure project funding is secured for operational reasons (namely financial and reputational), Post-Award Research Management has a tendency to be funded in an ad-hoc manner, often after a project has been awarded when the necessity to have a project manager in place becomes an urgent reality. Often this recruitment is undertaken by the Principal Investigator rather than the operational team and the line, training and career management of the RM is then the responsibility of the PI. The obvious drawback of this is that the manager for the Post-Award RM could potentially have no RM experience themselves on which to draw from and there may be no framework in place to provide training or career progression for the RMA in question. Another drawback is that the Post-Award PM role is tied to the project that they have been hired to manage, usually having a contract that ends on the day the project ends. The temporary nature of this employment leads to Post-Award RMs finding themselves in a very precarious position career-wise, without a defined next step when the project they are contracted to ends. While some research development teams provide better integration for their Pre- and Post-Award RMAs, Post-Award RMs can often end up working in a vacuum, not truly belonging to a wider team as their role is very much project-dependent.

The lack of recognition of the profession of research managers was highlighted as the overall challenge in Article 17 of the ERA Policy Agenda. In the proposed European Research Management Initiative, objectives and related activities focusing on upskilling, recognition, networking and capacity building have been identified as ways to counteract this and provide career pathways to ensure knowledge is retained within an institution. But what operating structures are required within institutions to enable these activities to be implemented for Post-Award RMs?

What are the takeaways / learning outcomes?
We are interested to hear how Post-Award teams are employed, funded and managed in other institutions.

By facilitating discussion we would like to get some practical examples of what works well in academic institutions and research centres across Europe. We are also interested to hear how Pre-Award and Post-Award teams work together on knowledge sharing, proposal development and forward planning. As RMA roles evolve we want to learn about the operating structures which manage them so that we can incorporate best practice models into our strategic planning as we enter new phases of funding and restructuring over the coming years.