What is Research Development?

Research Development encompasses a set of strategic, proactive, catalytic, and capacity-building activities designed to facilitate individual faculty members, teams of researchers, and central research administrations in attracting extramural research funding, creating relationships, and developing and implementing strategies that increase institutional competitiveness.

Research Development professionals initiate and nurture critical partnerships and alliances throughout the institutional research enterprise and between institutions—and with their external stakeholders. With the goal of enabling competitive individual and team research and facilitating research excellence, Research Development professionals build and implement strategic services and collaborative resources that span across disciplinary and administrative barriers within their organizations and beyond.

Research Development includes a broad spectrum of activities that vary by institution, including: funding opportunity identification and targeted dissemination; grant/contract proposal development;  research team building; interaction with funding agencies and institutional research administration and leadership; interaction with institutional federal relations; and outreach activities and training.

Research Development according to Wikipedia

Research Development: A Career for the Planners, Strategists, and Figure-it-Out-ers (Samarapita Sengupta is a science writer at Neuroscience Research Development (NeRD) Office at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the NORDP Liaison to the National Postdoctoral Association. This article was published by the National Postdoc Association, October 2017)


Research Development Activities

Strategic Research Advancement
Collaborate to identify areas of institutional research priorities • Strategic Planning Support (information to leadership about opportunities/strengths/weaknesses) • Advise institutional leadership on issues related to research • Serve as institutional representative to university community and external visitors • Manage or contribute to decisions regarding internal funding • Provide research areas development support to include such things as formal partnerships with external entities or facilitating faculty participation • Interactions with political leaders related to research initiatives at your institution  • Liaison with institutional federal relations • Industry collaboration and partnerships • Liaison with funding agencies about direction of future research funding initiatives • Bringing Program Managers/Agency representatives to Campus or taking/introducing Faculty to them • Facilitating Sponsor Site visits • Coordinating/Managing the limited submission process

Communication of Research and Research Opportunities
Manage marketing of research, e.g. annual reports, research magazine, web page development/coordination, identifying institutional priorities • Raise profile of university strengths that add to visibility or impact of university with external funding sources • Providing proposal/award information related metrics to internal constituents • Website support e.g. grant opportunities and proposal development • Collect and disseminate funding information to faculty and administrators • Conducting Grant Writing Workshops on your campus or regionally

Enhancement of Collaboration/Team Science
Convene and coordinate multi-disciplinary interest groups • Catalyze new cross-disciplinary research initiatives • Sponsoring catalytic research events, e.g. research mini-symposia • Develop and/or coordinate resources and tools to promote collaboration • Provide guidance and expertise for building and fostering connections and teams • Maintain faculty expertise database and other collaboration web tools • Facilitating collaborations between investigators at your own institution • Facilitating collaborations between investigators at other institutions • Provide guidance on the identification of and manage the institution’s Research Networking Tools

Proposal Support Functions
Assisting faculty to find funding opportunities • Newsletters/Listserv announcements of funding opportunities • Maintain a file of successful proposals • Assisting faculty navigate through administrative structures within your institution • Proposal Development Support for individual investigator awards • Proposal Development Support for large, complex awards • Proposal Development Project Management (coordinating milestones, internal deadlines, meetings, e-mail reminders, etc.) • Liaison with funding agencies during proposal development process • Grant Writing of Technical/Scientific, Evaluation,  Resources, Administrative, Timeline, Communications, and Outreach portions of proposals • Developing/Reviewing Budgets and budget justifications for application • Handling Letters of Support/Biosketches/COI/Compliance/ • Developing Diversity and RCR education Sections for Grant Proposals • Coordinating/Finding collaborating institutions for a proposal • Suggesting collaborating scientists for a proposal • Providing strategic advise on making proposal competitive • Editing proposal drafts • Manage requests for cost sharing • Assist in coordinating institutional support requests • Coordinating pre-submission peer reviews of proposal drafts • Manage “Red Team” reviewers or external review process  • Coordinating Core Facility information • Assist with Just in Time or additional information requests from sponsor after proposal submission • Analyze proposal reviews and provide feedback to investigators or other institutional officials.

Research Development and Team Science

Team Science is characterized by large multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary collaborative research projects comprised of large teams of scientists, that often integrate research with broader goals including education, technology transfer, outreach and diversity enhancement. Research Development is an activity that many Universities have embraced to enhance the efforts of their faculty and foster the development of collaborative, team-based science as well as compete for large research center and consortia funding opportunities. Research Development professionals serve as "rainmakers" who catalyze and facilitate team science in response to the external funding landscape.

Research Development on Wikipedia