RESEARCH REPORT December 1, 2020 The Senior Research Officer Experience, Role, Organizational Structure, Strategic Directions, and Challenges Oya Y. Rieger Roger C. Schonfeld Ithaka S+R provides research and strategic guidance to help the academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, demographic, and technological change. Ithaka S+R is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that works to advance and preserve knowledge and to improve teaching and learning through the use of digital technologies. Artstor, JSTOR, and Portico are also part of ITHAKA. Copyright 2020 ITHAKA. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. ITHAKA is interested in disseminating this brief as widely as possible. Please contact us with any questions about using the report:
[email protected]. We thank Ex Libris for its sponsorship of this project. The Senior Research Officer 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Research Goals and Methodology 4 Literature Review 5 About the Senior Research Officer 6 Career Paths and Requirements 6 Scope and Title 8 Primary Responsibilities 10 Funding 11 Power and Influence 12 Collaborators 13 Strategic Priorities and Challenges 14 Revenue and Fundraising 14 Increasing Impact 18 Research Support 21 Compliance 24 Talent 26 Research Analytics 28 Evolving Roles and Future of the Position 30 Structural Reflections 31 Acknowledgements 32 Appendix: Interview Guide 35 The Senior Research Officer 2 Executive Summary The senior research officer is an extremely important position at major research universities, playing a principal leadership role for what is typically a vast research enterprise.