Improving Research Administration and Faculty Research Development through Sustainable Initiatives at StMU

 描述(由申请者提供)：圣玛丽大学(StMU)通过可持续发展计划改善研究管理和学院研究发展。在过去两年半的时间里，StMU的外部资金组合翻了一番，从2011财年的40.241.57亿美元增加到2014年10月1日的92.126.59亿美元。这种扩大可能归因于各级新的管理层，希望在教学和研究之间有一个更平衡的组合，大学出现了新的学科，以及过去五年中大量STEM教员的进入。然而，这种扩张给其研究管理基础设施带来了巨大的压力。此外，联邦法规以及财政和监管责任的外部压力在过去十年里使研究管理环境变得复杂。尽管STMU研究管理办公室在过去几年中成功地进行了一些改进，如电子研究管理，但在研究管理支持结构上的整体投资没有跟上受赞助项目组合的预期或增长。此外，随着赠款资金的竞争力增强， 对于一所成功的研究型大学来说，拥有最好的支撑结构对于提高机构和教师的竞争力变得更加重要。对STMU目前的研究管理程序的审查揭示了几个需要解决的领域，以便为教师提供高效和有效的服务。由于STMU主要是一所本科院校，教职员工很难平衡他们相对较高的教学负担(每学期4门课程)、他们对学生的指导以及他们对部门的其他承诺。如果教职员工有时间从教学工作中解放出来，从事紧张的研究提案开发，这将是增加拨款申请的富有成效的方式。其次，STMU学术研究和赞助项目办公室(OARSP)只有一名全职工作人员、执行主任、四分之三的行政支持人员和一名兼职的获奖后支持人员。在圣玛丽大学这种规模和范围内的大学，在颁奖前和获奖后的支持、赠款的编写以及合规和培训方面需要额外的支持。由于人员有限，OARSP很难提供这一水平 如果STMU要继续发展并在获得资金方面取得成功，就需要为研究人员提供服务。本文提出的资助申请提出了三个目标，以解决STMU目前在管理与外部赞助研究管理有关的获奖前和获奖后程序方面的弱点：1)改善对教职员工的提案制定服务(即提供赠款培训讲习班、关于使用电子 (2)加强颁奖后服务(即针对教员颁奖后问题的工作坊、发展我们的网站以提供更多有关监管事宜的网上资料来源、参加NCURA或SRA有关颁奖后程序的工作坊)及3)透过为研究人员、行政人员及学生持续进行的专业发展/培训，促进研究行政程序改善的可持续性。为了实现该项目的目标并促进可持续性，计划开展了一系列活动，包括但不限于，1)培训PI/EA成为短期和长期改革的领导者，2)为研究人员和行政人员建立定期培训机会(例如，GRAT写作、合规培训和赠款管理讲习班，并为教师提供支持，使其专注于提案制定)，3)开发最新的赠款管理政策和程序资源库，以及4)建立一个招聘和培训新的研究管理人员的计划。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Improving Research Administration and Faculty Research Development through Sustainable Initiatives at St. Mary's University (StMU). StMU external funding portfolio has doubled over the last two and a half years from $4,024,157 million in FY 2011 to $9,212,659 million as of October 1, 2014. This expansion may be attributed to new administration at all levels, the desire to have a more balanced portfolio between teaching and research, the emergence of new disciplines at the university, and the entry of a large group of STEM faculty over the past five years. However, this expansion has placed tremendous pressure on its research administrative infrastructure. In addition, federal regulations and external pressure for fiscal and regulatory accountability have complicated the research administration environment over the last decade. Although the StMU research administration office has been successful in making a number of improvements over the last few years, such as electronic research administration, the overall investment in research administration support structure has not kept pace with the expectations or growth in the sponsored program portfolio. Further, as the competitiveness for grant funds increases, it becomes more important for a successful research university to have the best support structure to increase the institutions and the faculty's competitiveness. Review of current research administrative processes at StMU reveal several areas that need to be addressed in order to provide efficient and effective services to the faculty. Because StMU is a Primarily Undergraduate Institution it is very difficult for faculty to balance their relatively high teachin loads (4 courses per semester), their mentoring of students, and their other commitments to their departments. If faculty members had release time from teaching duties to engage in intense research proposal development it would be productive way to increase grant submissions. Secondly, the StMU Office of Academic Research and Sponsored Programs (OARSP) has only one full time staff, the Executive Director, a 3/4 time administration support person, and one part-time post-award support person. At a university of the size and scope of St. Mary's, additional support is needed in the pre- and post-award support, grant writing, and compliance and training. Because of limited staffing it is difficult for OARSP to provide the level of service to research faculty that is needed if StMU is to continue to grow and be successful in acquiring funding. The application for funding contained herein proposes three goals to address the current weaknesses in StMU management of the pre and post award processes related to the administration of external sponsored research; 1) To improve the proposal development services to the faculty (i.e. providing grant training workshops, training on use of the electronic grant administration, enhancing related resources for new investigators and hiring a FTE for research administration); 2) To strengthen post-award services (i.e., workshops targeting post-award issues for faculty, developing our website with more on-line sources of information regarding regulatory issues, attending NCURA or SRA workshops on post-award procedures) and 3) To promote the sustainability of improvements made to the research administration process through the implementation of ongoing professional development / training for research faculty, administrators and students. In order to accomplish the goals of this project and to promote sustainability a series of activities are planned, including but not limited to, 1) The training of the PI/EA to become a leader of both short-term and long-term change, 2) Establishing regular training opportunities for research faculty and administrative staff (i.e. grat writing, compliance training, and grants management workshops, and the provision of support for faculty to concentrate on proposal development, 3) The development of an up-to-the date resource library for grants administration policies and procedures and, lastly, 4) The creation of a program to recruit and train new research administration personnel.