The following update has been shared with research administrators via the September issue of OVPR’s Research Administration (RA) Community News.
As we begin this new academic year, we're writing to let you know about some exciting work that's underway in support of you in your careers. Cutting-edge research is core to MIT's mission, and without the dedicated efforts of more than 200 departmental research administrators working collaboratively with administrators in RAS, OSATT, and other central offices, that research would not be possible. Collectively, MIT research administrators across campus manage more than $800M in sponsored funding. Thank you for everything you do!
Given the importance of your roles, we want to do everything we can to make MIT a place where you can continue to grow and advance through meaningful career development and career paths. To guide that effort, we’ve launched a working group comprising a dozen departmental research administrators, co-led by Kelley Connors (associate vice president for human resources), and Colleen Leslie (assistant provost for research administration). The members of the working group, recommended by the assistant deans, are cross-functional and representative of MIT’s research administration community.
The team spent the better part of the spring semester reviewing the job family guides for the DLCI positions that manage sponsored awards and conducting peer benchmarking. For context, a job family guide is an internal tool that HR staff use to define groups of jobs that are generically equivalent in scope and seniority across the Institute. This effort lays the groundwork to clarify career trajectories in research administration at MIT. When the updated guides are finalized, they will be made available to help you plan your career journeys at the Institute and to support efforts to recruit, onboard, and retain talent at various levels.
While this project focuses on research administrators, it’s part of a broader effort by MIT HR and leadership to periodically review staffing approaches to ensure equity and provide career opportunities. Within OVPR, we are also developing plans to enhance the training and resources available to our research administration colleagues in the DLCIs. We look forward to sharing further updates on this initiative with you in the coming months.
For now, thank you for all your work in support of MIT’s research enterprise, as we proudly mark and celebrate National Research Administrator Day.