Reforming Hiring Processes to Build Research Teams Faster

There is wide variation in the nature of work within universities. Faculty and staff in academic programs use institutional funds with high certainty of continuity; they are hired through open searches, often extending over months.

Research units that depend on external funding have revenue that is determined entirely by the funding agency. Sometimes, research agreements require the completion of a project in a short time period. A 12-month project is not unusual. A three- to five- year project is coveted; a 10-year project is very rare.

Since the staffing of such projects is dependent on external funds, teams cannot be formed until the funding is somewhat certain. However, once the formal commitment of funding is given, the clock of the project begins ticking. On a one year project, spending two months to hire the research staff wastes 16% of the project time.

A related feature of research projects reflects how new research ideas occur. Often, collaborators and their teams discuss the opportunities for the next stage of their research. Grant proposals are written that describe a team makeup, whether or not the team members are currently employees. The peer review of the proposal depends partly on the naming of key staff who boost the likelihood that the project will be successful. Thus, whether or not the proposed team members are currently employed at the university, their membership on the team can be crucial to success in the grant competition.

This feature of assembling teams that compete for grant funding (whether or not they currently are employed at the university of the principal investigator) means that the logic of an open search for filling team positions makes little sense. The proposed research staff has already been vetted by the peer review process of the grant program.

Both the limited funding runway for grant-funded research and the pre-vetted teams justify the need for speed in hiring research staff.

For some months the Provost Office, in collaboration with colleagues throughout the university, has been trying to reform the hiring process for research staff. This focused on the “Research Fellow” titles.

Under the new policy, three levels of Research Fellows exist – Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, and Distinguished Research Fellow. The three levels correspond to increasing levels of responsibility and autonomous work duties. All three appointment types are term-limited by the nature of the external funding.

Under the new policy Research Fellows are not subject to the standard search procedures. Such appointments will made upon recommendation by the research unit and approved by the responsible Dean and Provost. Research Fellows hired under a yearly appointment can be hired without the need for an open search. (However, open searches will be required for hires and renewals to a multi-year contract.) The supervisor of the Fellow will be the Principal Investigator of the funded project.

If the external funding for his/her position is modified or canceled during the term of an appointment, a fellow can be terminated, or have his or her salary reduced or otherwise discontinued or terminated. Such is the nature of work on external funding.

So the newly designed research fellow framework does not solve all problems of employment in “soft-money” units. It does, however, address directly the speed with which research teams can be formed at the beginning of a project.

Our hope is that this will indirectly increase the research productivity of Georgetown faculty and staff.