Category: Strategic Alliances

NORDP’s Strategic Alliances Committee Supports Fulbright Specialist and Fulbright Scholar Opportunities

As you consider new RD opportunities this year, members of the Strategic Alliances Committee (SAC) offer their support for the Fulbright Specialist and Fulbright Scholar opportunities, such as the short-term International Education Administrators Award (IEAA).

The Fulbright Specialist program sends US academic professionals abroad to serve as expert consultants on curriculum, faculty development, institutional planning, and related subjects at academic institutions for a period of two to six weeks. The Fulbright Scholar IEAAs are two-week seminars hosted by the Fulbright Commissions in particular countries for higher education professionals to exchange their professions’ best practices with their counterparts abroad.

SAC hosted a webinar on the Fulbright Specialist program in 2022 covering its applicability to RD professional development and its application and selection processes. Fulbright Specialist applications are reviewed every other month.

“If qualified, you’re added to a list, and interested countries can use that to select their chosen specialist,” Kotay explains. “To facilitate the process, it helps to identify the university you’re interested in visiting and research its needs. SAC members can help you with both the proposal development and how to establish connections. Then, when the university makes its application to host a Fulbright Specialist, it can name you, specifically.”

Kotay and Peggy Sundermeyer, Partner, ORG Transitions and a charter member of SAC, are willing to coach NORDP members who might want to explore these Fulbright opportunities. Sundermeyer says she’s motivated by the benefits that Fulbright can bring to the individual, their institution, their host institution, and the broader global research enterprise.

Selected in 2022 for the Fulbright Scholar IEAA in Germany, Kotay networked with German higher education administrators, shared best practices in RD, and learned about the German education system with a focus on the challenges of internationalization in times of crisis.

Fulbright IEAAs offer opportunities to RD professionals to enhance the internalization efforts of their work and share RD best practices that are often practiced differently outside the US.

“What one brings back to their institution is a stronger awareness of how to build partnerships for a variety of educational and research initiatives, plus the prestige of being a Fulbright Scholar,” Kotay says.

Led by the US government in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, the broader Fulbright Program offers international educational and cultural exchange programs for students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach, or pursue important research and professional projects.

“These Fulbright opportunities can facilitate global research, better understand resource allocation in other countries, and foster excellent career development opportunities,” Sundermeyer says.

A copy of  SAC’s Fulbright Specialist webinar is available in the members-only section of the NORDP website here.

More information about the Fulbright Specialist Program can be found here.

More information about the Fulbright Scholar International Education Administrators Award can be found here.

To explore Fulbright opportunities unique to your situation, send an email to peggys@orgtransitions.org and/or emkotay@arizona.edu.

NORDP Award Highlights Innovation

At the 2022 NORDP Annual Conference, a group of NORDP members were recognized with the 2022 NORDP Innovation Award for their contributions to the research development profession. Before 2022 comes to a close, we celebrate their work that resulted in a valuable resource for research development organizations and individuals: the NORDP Resource for Organizing and ADapting a Training Program toward Developing an RD career (NROAD to RD).

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Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash

NROAD to RD was designed to help RD professionals and offices develop internship and training programs to expand the RD community. It brought together representation from each NORDP committee and used crowd-sourcing to identify materials;

Easy to access at https://nordp.mclms.net/en/package/6128/course/6797/view, the program provides a framework and growing library of resources. RD offices can access modules and add additional components to create a program relevant to their individual office and institution. While originally developed as an internship/training tool, NROAD to RD serves as an innovative tool that can be adapted for training or onboarding new RD members, or even for professional development. It has already been accessed and used by more than 150 members.

The effort was chaired by Samarpita (Samar) Sengupta, Assistant Professor and Director of Research at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Physician Assistant Studies. She fondly recalls the teamwork that made NROAD to RD possible.

“This effort arose from my work as a Strategic Alliance Committee liaison to the National Postdoc Association, which identified a need for training related to research development for postdoctoral scholars. Working with Peggy Sundermeyer, the chair of SAC, we realized that a centralized approach wouldn’t work. So, we pulled together different perspectives, tapping expertise from NORDP’s various committees.”

The NROAD to RD team leveraged existing resources and created new tools to create an innovative resource will help grow the RD field and community. Their dedication of countless volunteer hours for brainstorming, creating, persevering, and was recognized with the 2022 NORDP Innovation Award. 

Phase 1 piloted in 2018, followed by Phase 2 work focused on implementation and dissemination. In early 2021, the Phase 2 team conducted a survey of users to determine return on investment and identify areas for improvement.

“As opposed to dropping into the storm without a parachute, now postdocs and others can learn about the RD profession and potentially join our growing field,” Sengupta says. “Previously, there was no way for RD offices to provide such information, no training or internship structure to utilize. We filled a gap that people didn’t even realize they had. Many NORDP members are also using this resource for onboarding new employees.”

In addition to Sengupta, NROAD to RD’s Phase I working group included Peggy Sundermeyer, Trinity University; Joanna Downer, Duke University; Page Sorensen, previously at the University of California San Francisco; Sharon Pound, University of Tennessee; Rebecca Latimer, University of Virginia; Nicole Frank, University of Utah; Beth Moser, previously at Maricopa County Community Colleges District; and Sarah Messbauer, University of California, Davis.

The NROAD to RD team now lives under the NORDP Professional Development committee. Phase II WG members include Joanna Downer, Rebecca Latimer, and Samarpita Sengupta from Phase I, with several new members: Danielle Matsushima, Columbia University; Elaine Lee, Boston University; Maile Henson, Duke University; and Alexis Nagel, Medical University of South Carolina. Peggy Sundermeyer; Jacob Levin, Levin Global Group; and Jeff Agnoli, the Ohio State University, provided consulting support as and when needed. 

A “living resource,” NROAD to RD is being continually modified to update materials and add items requested by users. The team is now a working group of the NORDP Professional Development Committee.

Once again, NORDP thanks these tireless RD professionals who made NROAD to RD possible. Visit the Professional Development Committee website to learn more and access this and other online RD resources.

Liaison News: Research Development and the International Forum on Expert Finders Systems Call for Conference Proposals

Jeff Agnoli, Senior Liaison, Office of Corporate Partnerships, The Ohio State University, is serving on the Conference Steering Committee for the International Expert Finders System Forum, April 5 & 6, 2023 in Coral Gables Miami, Florida. He will be a keynote presenter in part because of his research development responsibilities and his role in building a sustainable future for the Ohio Innovation Exchange, http://OhioInnovationExchange.org. This year’s theme is Connecting the Dots, which is something RD professionals do every day!

Agnoli will feature the various ways RD professionals use tools to build interdisciplinary teams, assist with identifying mentors, fostering innovation, building corporate partnerships, and driving economic development. He invites other NORDP members to consider submitting a call for conference proposals and share their institution’s unique use of these emerging tools. Presentations, panels, or posters can address how each college/university leverages these platforms to provide strategic/competitive intelligence, enhance the proposal development process, etc.

“I believe it is time for the RD community to do what we do best, i.e., leverage our relationships across the campus and advance the use of these tools,” he says. “Every day, we build partnerships with our colleagues in the libraries, information technology, communications, foundations/corporate relations, and technology transfer, to promote our faculty, enhance their research impact, and build our institutional reputation.”

Contact Agnoli at agnoli.1@osu.edu if you have questions or interest in collaborating on a poster, presentation, or panel discussion featuring your institution’s unique adoption of these types of platforms.

The Ohio Innovation Exchange (OIEx) is the essential gateway for university scholars and business/industry seeking to build partnerships. Visitors enjoy access to more than 10,000 experts, research equipment/services, and patents to drive innovation and increase economic development. Every week thousands of people from across the globe visit the http://OhioInnovationExchange.org to discover new opportunities and promote research discoveries.

Liaison News Roundup

The resources and opportunities below are presented on behalf of NORDP’s Strategic Alliances Committee (SAC).

Overseas Research Centers’ Faculty Development Seminars: The Council of American Overseas Research Centers’ upcoming faculty development seminars to India, Mexico, and Senegal are now accepting applications. Note that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the seminars to India and Senegal were postponed and will now take place in winter, while the seminar to Mexico will take place in Spring 2023.  CAORC offers fully funded overseas seminars that help faculty and administrators at US community colleges and minority-serving institutions gain international experience with the aim of developing and improving international courses, curricula, and teaching materials at their home institutions. To learn more, visit their website.

Team Science Resources: The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) has an online set of resources that will be of value to many NORDP members.  Dr. Margaret Palmer, director of SESYNC, was a keynote speaker at the SciTS 2022 conference (https://www.inscits.org/2022-keynote-speakers), where she shared the important collaborative and interdisciplinary research they’ve been doing.  This set of resources is part of SESYNC’s new website (www.sesync.org) that contains a vast collection of lessons and learning materials for the classroom, videos, case studies, data lessons and guides, explainer articles, and more. The materials cover a range of unique and innovative topics, including the science of team science.  They will continue to add to this collection to help those at all career stages to engage in socio-environmental and interdisciplinary research.

Expert Finder Systems Sets April 2023 Forum Date: On April 5 and 6, 2023, at the University of Miami Expo Center in Coral Gables, Florida, this Expert Finder Systems in-person event will bring together the research information management system community — practitioners, open-source tools, vendors, and researchers — to advance this rapidly evolving field. NORDP’s own Jeff Agnoli, Senior Liaison Strategic Partnerships at The Ohio State University, is helping plan the forum as a member of the Steering Committee. He says the great weather, gorgeous venue, and vibrant community make this event worth adding to your calendar! Registration and hotel details will be coming soon.

Last Call for ARIS/NORDP Senior Fellow Program!

ARIS (Advancing Research Impact on Society) is inviting nominations for four Senior Fellow positions. Nominations are due August 5, 2022. The application process can be accessed here.

Senior Fellows will serve as co-chairs in one of two priority areas:

  1. Preparing the next generation of researchers for impact. This group will synthesize the best available evidence, practical knowledge and tools to effectively support graduate engagement and education to advance research impacts. Selected Fellows are likely to have experience developing graduate curricula, innovating graduate programming or mentoring, supporting graduate student grantsmanship, and/or engaging graduate students through professional societies and organizations.
  2. Spotlight on minority-serving institutions. This group will use a journalistic approach to identify, investigate, and broadly share stories of broader impacts leadership from faculty, students, and staff at MSIs. They will interrogate the individual and institutional mechanisms of success and explore the promise of future broader impacts leadership at MSIs. This priority area is funded and designed in partnership with the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP).

Nominees for these leadership roles should have a deep knowledge of the current conditions, practices, and policies shaping graduate education or the research enterprise at MSIs. In addition to a CV, nominees will be asked to provide a brief statement (no more than 400 words) describing their:

  • interest in and experience related to the priority area; and
  • initial thinking on how they would lead a team of Fellows to pursue the project.

Senior Fellows will also participate in recruiting, reviewing, and selecting Fellows who will be invited to work on a collaborative team (September – November 2022). The program will run through the 2023 calendar year. Senior Fellows will be supported by the ARIS team throughout the process and expected to co-chair monthly team meetings and work sessions and provide guidance and mentorship to Fellows as they work to deliver a high-quality resource to the research community. Senior Fellows will also represent the team and the ARIS Fellows program at national meetings such as the Annual ARIS Summit or NORDP Annual Conference.

INORMS 2023 Abstracts Due Sept. 1

The International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) is taking its 2023 Congress to Durban, South Africa, May 30-June 2, 2023. Abstracts from NORDP members and others are invited, and the deadline is Sept. 1, 2022. The 2023 Congress theme is: “Toward a Utopia in Research and Innovation Management.”

Conference sub-themes include:

  • The current state of research and innovation management
  • Emerging trends in research and innovation management
  • Funding responsible research and innovation for global impact
  • Measuring research and innovation impact
  • Professionalization and capacity development in research and innovation management

The Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) will host the 2023 INORMS Congress. SARIMA is a membership organization for research and innovation professionals and managers. Its purpose is to strengthen research and innovation (R&I) in Southern Africa and ensure that there is social and economic development of the region. SARIMA’s key focus areas include research management, innovation and technology transfer, and Africa engagement. 

Visit www.inorms2023.org  for more information

Learn More About the Strategic Alliances Committee

Mark your Calendar!!

NORDP members are invited to join the Strategic Alliances Committee’s quarterly meeting on Thursday, Mar. 17, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. eastern time at this Zoom Link: https://tennessee.zoom.us/j/675272311.

Those who are new to the committee will learn more about its three key themes. NORDP members who serve as liaisons will provide updates on their respective organizations, and several liaisons will share success stories from organizations like ARIS, INORMS, and APLU. Learn more about what it means to be a liaison and how to apply. This is an excellent way to engage with NORDP and others in the research development universe.

Weigh In with Your Professional Insights

The International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) asks NORDP members to complete a survey about the profession of research management, which encompasses research development, research administration, and related professions.

As institutional members of INORMS, NORDP members have participated in the two previous world-wide surveys. Results of this survey will provide us all with a third snapshot of our profession across the globe, building a longitudinal dataset about our profession. 

With your participation in the study, we hope to provide recommendations for further training, professional development, staff recruitment, and retention. The survey can be found at https://inorms.net/activities/raaap-taskforce/raaap-survey-2022/. Feel free to forward this email to your research management colleagues.

(Please note that the survey must not be forwarded to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, or the Crimea Region of the Ukraine without the approval of the PI/Co-PI.  These countries/regions are subject to certain comprehensive economic sanctions and licensing requirements may apply.)

You can find out more on the project website: https://inorms.net/activities/raaap-taskforce/

NORDP’s International Collaboration

Karen Eck, Ph.D. and Gretchen Kiser, Ph.D. presented an online workshop, Research Development: Contextual and Relational Approaches to Institutional Research Support, in early December 2021 to research management professionals in India as part of IRMI, or India Research Management Initiative, an initiative of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance for strengthening institutional support for research in India. Reflecting on the experience of delivering a workshop outside of typical work hours (2:00 AM PST in this case!), Kiser commented that “although engaging with international partners may involve odd hours, it is nonetheless interesting and exciting.”

The opportunity came about after Savita Ayyar, Ph.D., a consultant leading the IRMI initiative, attended a talk given by Eck, Kiser and Jacob Levin, Ph.D. during the International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) conference in Spring 2021. After the conference, Ayyar inquired after an interactive workshop offering for the recently formed IRMI network, who hosted their first conference in January 2021.

Research Administration (RA) is in its early stages in India and is growing with new careers in both research development (RD) and RA. Ayyar says, “India has tremendous opportunities for team science, and Research Development can play an important role in nurturing these large-scale collaborations.  The April 2021 INORMS workshop by NORDP colleagues provided excellent examples of how team science could be professionally facilitated and how to hire people and build local capacity for this purpose. This motivated me to connect with Dr Eck and Dr Kiser, to explore possibilities for a joint workshop for our colleagues in India. We kept in touch and it was wonderful to see the workshop taking place later in the year.”

At the virtual December IRMI workshop, a first of its kind for NORDP, over 40 people from a variety of Indian university, research and private sector settings participated. They explored a variety of RD roles through interactive simulations with small group discussions that highlighted RD contextual and relational approaches, skills, and activities employed in cross-campus and cross-sector partnerships. 

NORDP joined INORMS in July 2020 and is committed to engaging an international audience and partnering with sister organizations around the world to provide professional development opportunities to its 1000+ membership. International engagement is led by the Strategic Alliances Committee (SAC) through its International Working Group and NORDP Liaison program. If you are interested to learn more, please contact SAC co-chair, Karen Eck, at keck@odu.edu.

Dr. Savita Ayyar is currently leading Jaquaranda Tree, an independent consultancy service she founded in 2017 that is aimed at supporting organizations with their research management needs. Prior to this she built an RD office about eight years ago at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in India. She describes the experience as a “once in a lifetime opportunity that was tremendously rewarding.”

Dr. Karen Eck is Assistant Vice President for Research at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, Virginia. She holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and completed a post-doc in psycho- and neurolinguistics at the Université de Montréal in Québec, Canada. Eck served on the NORDP Board of Directors from 2015-2019, as President in 2018-2019, and currently co-leads the Strategic Alliances Committee and represents NORDP on the International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) Council. She was selected in 2020 as a PEERD Expert, consulting individually and in teams for colleges and universities seeking institutional assessment of research development programs, best practices and capacity building. In 2021, she was honored with a NORDP Fellow designation to recognize her sustained contributions to NORDP and the practice and field of research development.

Dr. Gretchen Kiser is the Executive Director of the Research Development Office (RDO) at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and a long-time research development professional. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Kiser has been a member of NORDP since 2012 and served on the NORDP Board of Directors from 2014 – 2018 and as its President from 2016 – 2017. She serves as co-chair of both NORDP’s Committee on Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Alliances Committee. She was honored in 2020 as a NORDP Fellow and in 2021 with NORDP’s Leadership Award, which recognizes exceptional leadership and/or a deep commitment to volunteerism in ways that advance the profession and field of research development.

NORDP currently has 67 international members and has recently become part of a new initiative, the

INORMS Sister Association Reciprocal Benefit Strategy (ISARBS).  This will allow participating members of the INORMS community of research management associations to benefit from discounted rates on certain events, publications and other products offered by other associations in the international INORMS community

If you are a member of a participating INORMS association outside of North America, NORDP is happy to offer you the member rate for our annual Conference registration.  Please visit https://www.nordp.org/overseas-partners for details on ISARBS and participation in NORDP’s conference April 24-28, 2022.

Compiled by Daniel Campbell & Sharon Pound from the Communications Working Group