#NORDP2019 starts Monday, April 29, in Providence, RI. Keep checking back here at the blog and on our Twitter feed (@NORDP_official) for conference updates.
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Who: Stefania Elisabeth Grotti, Head Manager of the Research Office
Where: Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Number of years in research development: 18
Length of NORDP membership: 3 years
Number of NORDP conferences attended: 1
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited? As a European, I am fascinated by the local cultures of the different Continents I’ve visited. The most fascinating countries I’ve seen are Zimbabwe and South Africa, as well as Australia.
I have over 25 years of experience in the field of Research Leadership and Management, including 18 in academia, specifically at the Politecnico di Milano, where I am Head 
Manager of the Research Office. Over the years, I have developed strong leadership skills which have enabled me to build a solid record of success in guiding my team to meet its objectives. I have contributed significantly towards maintaining the Politecnico’s outstanding record of success in research fundraising (particularly from EU calls). Under my leadership, the Politecnico has become the most successful research university in Italy. Currently, I am Chair of the Vision 2020 Network Advisory Board and Secretary of NCURA Region VIII.
I’m a passionate and energetic professional involved in the field of academic research. I have extensive experience in funding and financial management, and the ability to negotiate and mediate at any level and stage since 1995. Thanks to national and international experience on complex projects, I have developed a robust knowledge of the Organisational HR Field suitable for transnational and diverse Research Contexts (academic and industry).
I first heard about NORDP through my participation in several international networks. I am very interested in Research Development activities; I enrolled in NORDP three years ago and in 2018 I attended the D.C. conference for the first time. I was pleased to find that all the Research Development Managers I met felt very engaged in their activities. It is certainly a stimulating environment for me
Yes, in Italy the Research Development activities are not very developed. The Politecnico di Milano is the first Italian university to have implemented them. I am proud to have been able to apply the strategies and the best practices of Research Development learned during the conference at my university.
I have met many new colleagues with whom I have maintained contact. This also allowed me to be invited as speaker at the 2019 conference in Providence.
To prepare to face the challenges we confront in academic research funding, I advise attendees to actively participate in the sessions and try to bring home the greatest amount of knowledge, above all from different perspectives, even at an international level. The day-to-day work of the Research Developer Manager can be enhanced tremendously through the exchange of ideas.
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For more information about the conference program, visit http://www.nordp.org/conferences. Follow @NORDP_official on Twitter for all the latest #NORDP2019 updates.
NORDP fosters a culture of inclusive excellence by actively promoting and supporting diversity, inclusion and equity in all its forms to expand our worldview, enrich our work, and elevate our profession.
“Day to day, what does inclusion look like at your institution?”
Providence Waterplace Park and Riverwalk
RISD Museum
Northwestern. Where did the time go? These years included 16+ years doing R&D at Dow Chemical, 9 years as a professor at Taylor University, and 5 years in the College of Engineering Office of Research at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
part of the job. I moved to another health charity where I was half time focused on research administration, and I got to spend a lot of time with faculty from a number of different universities. I was lucky enough to be approached by one of those universities with a position in the central research administration team. I moved up quickly and was soon the senior member of the team supporting grant applications at the university. I was recruited in 2016 to the faculty of medicine to build a team of grant development professionals. What started out as a team of 1 (me!) in 2016 will be soon be a team of 5, so we have seen rapid success and expansion. Throughout this time I have strived to expand my education and have been involved in the Canadian Association of Research Administrators (CARA), where I completed a certificate in research administration, I am involved in professional development, I lead a special interest group, I regularly present webinars, and I sit on the conference planning committee. I have also been taking advantage of membership with Society of Research Administrators (SRA) and attended training last summer on proposal development. My membership in NORDP is a natural extension of both my professional development, but also my personal interest in this work. I am looking forward to attending my first NORDP conference this year and the excellent conference program that has been put together.
When and how did you enter the field? What kind of RD work do you do? I had just finished my PhD in literature and was teaching at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Four tenure-track positions were open in my department, and I couldn’t bring myself to apply to any of them. I love community colleges—they are the most innovative thing about American higher education—but I knew that this wasn’t my path. My dean told me that a research institute at Oregon Health & Science University was looking for a contractor to teach science writing to their trainees. I applied, was hired, and never looked back. I had virtually no science background but my training in philosophy and literature, as well as my teaching many undergraduate sections of composition, served me well—I could decode. I could follow a variable through a process and identify inconsistencies and contradictions. I also had grant writing experience, so that helped. I loved the work—I loved learning about all the molecules and models, the norms of scientific culture, all of it.
while working on my PhD at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Over the last 14 years, I have worked with a diverse group of talented investigators across various cancer types, including brain, breast, and head and neck cancer. During this period, I have contributed to the development of various research initiatives through research design and implementation, which led to the successful development of peer-reviewed manuscripts and federal and nonfederal funded grants.
years in research, I realized that I enjoyed research administration and research development much more than doing actual research. I absolutely relish working with investigators and hearing about their research and helping them reach their goals.
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