Conference: INTEGRaL: Innovation Network To Enhance and Grow ReseArch Infrastructure and Links

该项目旨在改善研究管理和研究发展基础设施，以支持更多更好的有助于社会的发现。研究管理和研究开发专业人员帮助研究人员浏览复杂的拨款提交和奖励管理。不幸的是，为这些职业接受过正式培训的个人太少了，有足够人手来支持研究人员雄心壮志的机构也太少了。对于那些资源较少、获得联邦研究资金较少的机构来说尤其如此。为了应对这些挑战，该项目将来自研究机构的工作人员聚集在一起，确定具体问题，并提出可扩展和可推广的解决方案，以提供可持续的支持，并使研究活动多样化和扩大。提高研究管理和发展专业人员的技能使研究人员能够专注于他们的研究。为研究管理和发展专业人员创建培训项目和更明确的职业道路，将增加获得研究支持基础设施的机会，特别是在许多学院和大学所在的服务不足的城市地区和农村社区。加强和发展研究基础设施和联系的创新网络（INTEGRaL）将召集伊利诺斯州及周边地区的研究机构，解决共同的挑战，探索研究管理和研究发展的潜在解决方案，并考虑如何通过合作的方式推进共同的目标。两个总体主题将构成该项目的工作框架：1)研究管理和开发人员的培训和专业化，以及2)机构如何扩大这支队伍以匹配其资助组合。项目参与者将从伊利诺伊州及周边地区多种类型和规模的高等教育机构及相关组织中招募。该计划将分三个阶段进行：(1)进行电子调查，以确定两个主要主题下需要处理的主要具体议题；(2)举行为期一天半的研讨会，明确问题，并根据调查中确定的主题提出解决方案；(3)会后后续会议，根据需要进一步讨论任何议题。这个项目的预期结果是一组明确定义的问题和解决这些问题的建议解决方案。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project seeks to improve research administration and research development infrastructure to support more and better discoveries that will help society. Research administration and research development professionals help researchers navigate the complexity of grant submission and award management. Unfortunately, too few individuals are formally trained for these careers and too few institutions are adequately staffed to support the ambitions of their researchers. This is particularly true of institutions that have fewer resources and receive fewer federal research dollars. To meet these challenges, this project brings staff members from research institutions together to identify specific problems and propose scalable and generalizable solutions that provide sustainable support and diversify and broaden research activity. Enhancing the skills of research administration and development professionals allows investigators to focus on their research. Creating training programs and a better-defined career path for research administration and development professionals will grow access to research support infrastructure especially in underserved urban areas and rural communities where many colleges and universities are located. The Innovation Network To Enhance and Grow ReseArch Infrastructure and Links (INTEGRaL) will convene research institutions in Illinois and the surrounding region to address common challenges and explore potential solutions in research administration and research development and to consider how a cooperative approach could advance shared goals. Two overarching themes will frame the work of the project: 1) training and professionalization of the research administration and development workforce and 2) how institutions could scale this workforce to match their grant portfolios. Project participants will be recruited from multiple types and sizes of institutions of higher education and related organizations in Illinois and the surrounding region. The project will be conducted in three phases: (1) an electronic survey to identify the key specific topics to be addressed under the two main themes; (2) a one-and-a-half-day workshop to clearly define the problems and propose solutions based on the topics identified in the survey; (3) post-workshop follow-up sessions for further discussion of any topics as needed. The expected outcome of this project is a set of clearly defined problems and proposed solutions to address them.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.