Associate Director of Research Operations

University of Texas at Austin

5d • Onsite

About The Position

The purpose of this position is to provide strategic leadership and operational oversight for research administration activities across the College of Liberal Arts. Reporting to the Director of Research and Scholarship, the Associate Director of Research Operations serves as the college's lead research administration professional and works closely with college leadership, department administrators, research center staff, faculty, and university partners to strengthen research infrastructure, ensure compliance, improve operational effectiveness, and support the growth of externally funded research.
This position manages the daily operations of the College Research Support Office and leads efforts to develop consistent research administration practices across the college. The Associate Director partners with the Director and Associate Dean to identify organizational needs, implement strategic initiatives, improve processes, and advance college-wide research priorities.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.
• Certified Research Administrator (CRA) credential.
• Seven years of progressively responsible experience in research administration, sponsored projects administration, grants management, research operations, or university administration.
• Demonstrated experience providing oversight of both pre-award and post-award sponsored project activities, including proposal development, award administration, reporting, compliance, and research support services.
• Experience managing complex research portfolios, programs, centers, institutes, or administrative operations supporting externally funded research.
• Experience supervising professional and administrative staff, including responsibility for personnel management, training, workflow coordination, performance oversight, and professional development.
• Experience coordinating activities across multiple stakeholder groups, departments, centers, institutes, or organizational units to improve operational effectiveness and achieve strategic goals.
• Experience interpreting and applying federal regulations, sponsor requirements, and university policies governing sponsored research and research compliance.
• Experience supporting contracts, service agreements, subawards, memoranda of understanding, or other research-related agreements.
• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing operational processes, administrative systems, workflow improvements, or organizational change initiatives.
• Excellent written, verbal, analytical, organizational, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with faculty, administrators, research staff, department leadership, and central university offices.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and research administration systems.
• Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree.
• Ten or more years of progressively responsible research administration experience in a large public research university.
• Experience leading research administration operations for a college, division, center, institute, or similarly complex research organization.
• Experience serving as a compliance officer, compliance lead, or primary coordinator for research compliance activities.
• Experience overseeing multidisciplinary research portfolios involving federal, foundation, industry, and other external sponsors.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational transformation, administrative centralization efforts, service redesign, or large-scale process improvement initiatives.
• Experience training research administrators, faculty, or staff.
• Knowledge of UT Austin sponsored projects systems, policies, and procedures.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership for research administration activities across the College of Liberal Arts. Develop and implement strategies to improve research support services, increase operational efficiency, and strengthen institutional research capacity. Evaluate existing processes and recommend improvements to align with evolving university priorities, sponsor requirements, and faculty needs. Serve as a strategic advisor to college leadership regarding research administration operations, risk management, resource allocation, workload distribution, and emerging research administration issues. Lead initiatives to centralize and standardize research administration practices across college departments, centers, and institutes. Coordinate implementation of new policies, systems, and operational changes.
• Manage operations of the College Research Support Office. Supervise research administration staff, including responsibility for hiring, training, workload management, performance evaluation, professional development, and establishment of service standards. Develop staffing strategies and workflows that ensure timely and effective proposal support, award administration assistance, agreement coordination, and faculty service. Establish metrics and reporting mechanisms to monitor service quality, office performance, proposal activity, workload distribution, and research support outcomes.
• Provide college-level coordination and compliance oversight for research administration practices across college research units and departments. Collaborate with research administrators throughout the college to establish consistent procedures, promote best practices, and improve coordination. Monitor changes in sponsor and university policies and communicate implications to stakeholders. Lead efforts related to research compliance, risk mitigation, internal controls, documentation standards, and audit readiness. Serve as a key liaison with the Office of Sponsored Projects, Sponsored Projects Award Administration, the Office of the Vice President for Research, University Compliance Services, COLA Finance, COLA HR, and other campus units.
• Provide expert guidance on complex proposals, award management issues, contracts, service agreements, research collaborations, subawards, non-funded agreements, and other sponsored project activities. Collaborate with faculty, departments, and research units to support the development and administration of large, multidisciplinary, and strategically significant projects. Develop and maintain systems, procedures, templates, and guidance materials that support consistent research administration activities throughout the college.
• Develop and coordinate training programs, professional development opportunities, and resource materials for research administrators and related staff across the college. Foster a collaborative research administration community and facilitate communication among research stakeholders. Represent the College of Liberal Arts on university committees, working groups, and initiatives related to research administration and sponsored projects. Lead special projects and perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Impressive benefits package. For more details on benefits, please see: https://hr.utexas.edu/prospective/benefits and https://hr.utexas.edu/current/services/my-total-rewards
• Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), subject to the position being at least 20 hours per week and at least 135 days in length.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level