Planning: Advancing Discovery on a Sustainable National Research Enterprise

This project develops a research framework to understand how research enterprise infrastructure enables the sustainable success of large, federally funded awards. Research enterprise infrastructure underpins every federally funded scientific research activity in academia. Limited, publicly accessible knowledge exists about how this infrastructure specifically facilitates the sustainable success of research initiatives. Moreover, turnover in the research administration workforce has resulted in the loss of institutional knowledge and best practices. These gaps make it difficult for research institutions, especially emerging research institutions, to evaluate lessons learned and emulate successes while developing research enterprise structures that best meet the needs of the communities they serve. This planning project creates a “research on the research enterprise” framework to address the knowledge gap by: 1) identifying the research questions and output strategies that will best meet the nuanced needs of emerging and developing research institutions, 2) determining the appropriate methodologies to capture university research enterprise team and project leadership knowledge, and 3) establishing the partnerships and roles necessary for the success of the research design and development of a full-scale implementation project. Understanding how these elements can best serve emerging research institutions guides the identification of research questions, methodologies, and partnerships. The knowledge gaps addressed through this planning project will support the accelerated development of a national research infrastructure that is responsive to the nuanced needs of minority serving institutions (MSIs), non-R1 (e.g. R2-high research doctoral universities, D/PU-doctoral/professional universities), and baccalaureate/associate’s colleges and communities they serve. The increased capacity enabled through this work will help ensure that the advancement and application of science can better respond to the needs of the entire nation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.