As follows from the job title, the duties of a research administrator are related to the academic activity of a company or an organization. More precisely, research administrators are responsible for developing and monitoring research division budgets, preparing grant proposals, and coordinating clinical trial studies and post-award activities. Some organizations also require research administrators to screen job applications and conduct interviews (Washington University in St. Louis, 2021). However, this function duplicates the responsibilities of human resource managers.
The salary of research administrators is about $60,000 per year. For example, the previously mentioned Washington University in St. Louis states that an employee in this position will be paid from $53,900 – $92,200 per year (Washington University in St. Louis, 2021). The University of Colorado Boulder offers a salary range from $60,000-$62,000 per year (University of Colorado Boulder, 2021). An administrator at Dartmouth College in Hannover will receive $55,800 – $69,800 per year (Dartmouth, 2021). From this, it could be inferred that the salary range is even all over the country and is about $60,000 per year.
Necessary skills for a research administrator to have:
- Ability to develop and monitor budgets
- Attention to detail when creating grant documents and contracts
- Experience in working with award mechanisms
- Strong knowledge of the departmental policies and how to apply them in practice
- Good awareness of the requirements of sponsors who support research activities
To conclude, I am interested in taking a position like this because it is related to academic activities and grants me a chance to deepen into research. However, the major downside of such a position is that this job is about administrating research activities, not about being involved in them directly. To obtain this type of job, I need to raise my awareness of grant requirements and gain more experience working with the relevant documents.
References
Dartmouth (2021). Research Administrator. Web.
University of Colorado Boulder (2021). Research Administrator. Web.
Washington University in St. Louis (2021). Research Administrator – Infectious Diseases. Web.