University of Saskatchewan
What is the mission of the Canadian Association of Research Administration (CARA)?
CARA provides professional development and networking opportunities to over 1100 professionals at research institutions across Canada. Founded in 1971, I believe it is the third oldest research administration society in the world, after NCURA and SRAI.
How did you become involved in CARA?
As a departmental Research Facilitator at the University of Saskatchewan, I support health science researchers in the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, the College of Kinesiology, and in the School of Public Health. When I started my job in 2012, I was interested in meeting and learning as much as I could from people who did similar work. I work at a research-intensive university and so there is a large group of us who work in research facilitation on campus. I realized that we all do slightly different things depending on the organizational needs and culture of our departments, so I wanted to expand my network even further; the annual CARA conference allowed me to make these important connections and learn more about my profession. At the same time, I discovered NORDP and was soon matched to Karen Eck through the NORDP mentorship program. We had a CARA connection as Karen had worked at McGill University in Montreal and was the CARA-NORDP liaison at the time. This is when research development’s place within the broader landscape of research administration and management started to become clearer for me.
What is research facilitation?
That is actually what we call research development in Canada, though the term research development is appearing more frequently in our professional terminology and in position and research office titles, which could be due to NORDP’s influence. Although, in Quebec, the literal translation “développement de la recherche” is a term commonly used.
Is RD a part of CARA?
Yes, about one third of CARA members say they perform grant facilitation, and conference sessions on research facilitation/development are always very well attended. While we currently lack a formal special interest group devoted to research development within CARA, I think there is interest in creating such a space. Last January, with two of my CARA colleagues, we created the Grant Facilitators’ Journal Club, a monthly online gathering where CARA members come to discuss current literature in grant facilitation. At a typical meeting, someone presents a paper, and a discussion ensues about the topic and its relevance to our work. We have close to a dozen attendees every month, so the journal club is creating that sense of community and filling a need.
How is NORDP’s relationship with CARA mutually beneficial?
It’s always interesting and valuable to learn about practices across the international landscape, and I’m hoping to share some of my Canadian insights on RD at future NORDP events. I believe there are currently about a dozen Canadians within NORDP. While this is a small group, I could see it growing among those who identify as RD professionals, especially as the term and its distinct body of knowledge gain ground. Recently, NORDP and CARA established a Memorandum of Understanding as a first step in creating a formal framework to allow for deeper and more sustained exchanges involving professional development and networking through for example joint webinars and conferences. As the current CARA-NORDP liaison, I’m excited to be able to help facilitate these exchanges.
You recently completed a study about research development in Canada. Could you tell us about it?
With my colleague and fellow CARA and NORDP member Anita Sharma of Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, we embarked on empirically describing what research development looks like in Canada. The professionalization of RD has developed somewhat in parallel to that in the U.S., with the first university grant facilitators appearing in the late 1990s. Still, for a profession that’s been around for decades, there is very little scholarly Canadian literature about the function or the profession. So, Anita and I conducted a survey of RD professionals across Canada with a goal of comparing our findings with that of similar U.S. studies. We found many similarities between the two countries, such as the emphasis on building capacity, the demographics of staff, and the broad presence of RD professionals across different types of research institutions and organizational models. And some particularities came through as well. For example, we probed into the function vs. profession aspect of RD as many professionals have split roles, mainly involving more prescriptive research administration. Also, some of the questions in our survey focused on what we might call a fifth area of RD. Within NORDP, we often speak of the four areas as strategic advancement, proposal development, research communication, and team science. To this, we added “researcher development” a term used in the U.K. to refer to the personal, professional, and career development of researchers of all stages, from undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical residents, to early, mid, and late career faculty. Many respondents identified with this mentoring or teaching aspect.
What does researcher development mean to you?
To me, research-er development is another opportunity to strategically move the dial on research by helping researchers adapt to the constantly changing research landscape, and by gaining new research adjacent skillsets in research management, finances, ethics, communications, and other related topics. The leading resource on researcher development is the Vitae website. Though much of it is accessible only to institutional members, it is still a valuable starting point for those who provide training and development support to researchers.
Interview conducted by Elizabeth Festa. For more information about the SAC Liaison program, contact her at eaf2@rice.edu.
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