Abstract

With the changing research ecosystem and the need to fund large-scale international research, research management and administration (RMA) has become a profession that demands specialized knowledge, training, and skills. Despite its importance, the current body of knowledge on the profession lacks a universal definition delineating the responsibilities and skills of RMA professionals in order to conceptualize and standardize RMA as a field of expertise. While RMA is not a new profession, it is still undergoing the process of establishing an explicit professional identity (Kerridge, 2023; Kerridge & Scott, 2018; Reardon, 2021; Virágh et al., 2019).

Recently, significant efforts have been made to recognize research administration as a global profession through national, regional, and global research administration professional organizations. These professional organizations provide formal/informal training as well as networking environments that enable the practitioners of RMA to share best practices and capitalize on opportunities for developing the profession. Given the increasing importance of research administration within the research environment, RMA's responsibilities, functions, and capabilities are not well-defined both in practice and in theory. In the absence of job descriptions and specifications, most RMA professionals are not usually employed as research managers or research administrators. However, they are instead positioned as legal, financial, or administrative staff and even serve as researchers at the same time. Although RMA as a profession has different distinct sub-areas, such as research development, pre-award, post-award, ethics, compliance, and knowledge exchange (Kerridge, 2023), its roles are not well defined by most institutions neither they are acknowledged as research managers and administrators.

Despite the active involvement of RMA professionals in research processes, there is a surprising lack of attention directed toward the profession and its responsibilities and skills. Hence, with limited information available, job descriptions, organizational structures, responsibilities, and skills remain unclear. Therefore, this study is set to define the roles and responsibilities of RMAs based on professionals' perceptions and experiences and then develop recommendations for the professionalization of RMAs.

A three-stage mixed methods approach was adopted in this study. First, 25 RMA professionals from different universities, firms, NGOs, and regional development agencies across Türkiye were interviewed with regard to their responsibilities and skills needed to conduct their jobs effectively. A workshop was then organized to garner deeper and collective thoughts about RMA as a profession and the skills and duties associated with effectiveness in RMA. At the end of this qualitative phase, a list of skills and responsibilities was identified. In order to group these responsibilities and skills and measure their importance, a survey was designed and conducted to be collected from 200+ RMAs operating in Türkiye.

Therefore, the study aims to explore the dynamics of the complex RMA profession structure shaping research environments and institutions by focusing on the responsibilities and skills of RMA. Such knowledge would not only contribute to the theoretical recognition of RMA as a profession but also would assist the development of specific job descriptions, job specifications, recruitment, and evaluation of RMAs. These, in turn, would facilitate more effective RMA activity and essential research funding for science, innovation, and society.