NSF Award
2324414
Through a series of convenings and a final symposium, this project develops best practices for a regional pipeline program to establish internships in research administration for students of the seven four-year Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in Maryland and Delaware. The internships will allow students to gain experience and familiarity with research administration as a career pathway. By recruiting and retaining the next generation of research administrators, this internship program helps expand and diversify the research administration workforce and builds research capacity, while establishing a model that other institutions can follow. <br/><br/>The series of convenings supported by this project engage multiple stakeholder communities in a collaborative, partnerships-driven process. Regional convenings bring together student interns and research leaders, administrators, and campus professionals from across the seven Maryland and Delaware MSIs to identify ways to promote research administration to students as a career opportunity. National convenings bring together members of professional societies in research administration to discuss how best to train students to meet the needs of the broader research administration workforce. In a final symposium, participants and student interns finalize best practices for developing the regional research administration internship program. In addition to a culminating white paper, participants and student interns are included as co-researchers on presentations and workshops at regional and national conferences and papers for research administration journals. These deliverables chart a course for establishing and expanding sustainable, replicable, and scalable internship programs at other universities, to further build equitable and inclusive environments for research administration.<br/><br/>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.
