Chief Research Officer Job Description

The Office of Research is responsible for providing resources, advocacy, education and support to elevate and advance East Carolina University’s research community. The office provides oversight of ECU’s research enterprise including grant administration and ethical practices; ensures compliance with the federal, state, and University rules and regulations; and includes Pre-Award Services, Post-Award Services, Research Integrity and Compliance, Compliance Monitoring, Research Administration Analytics, Research Development, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and the University Medical and Behavioral Institutional Review Board.

Responsibilities:

• Oversees University research administration and operations and engages in effective and transparent decision-making in consultation with key stakeholders including the Office of Innovation and Engagement and the Chancellor, Provost, Deans, faculty, and other university leaders.​
• Promotes highest standards of safety, ethics, security, research integrity and export control to ensure operations and practices are fully compliant with federal, state, local, and University laws, regulations, and policies, including compliant and ethical grant administration for grants, contracts and clinical trials.
• Leads and continues to advance support systems for research development within the university research enterprise​. Responsible for exploring potential new areas for research and creative pursuit at the institutional level​.
• Promotes and sustains financial management and accounting structures and systems to meet campus pre-award, post-award, IT infrastructure, and compliance needs, and works with key stakeholders and partners to ensure effective systems for each. Helps steward the physical and computational infrastructure necessary to support research operations and programs.​
• Charged with fostering increases in external funding to support research and creative works, strengthen scholarly dissemination; foster promotion, growth, and collaboration in research and scholarly endeavors; and engage students in appropriate undergraduate and graduate research experiences​.
• Helps foster a culture that attracts world-class scholars, and ensures they remain vibrant and productive members of the University community.​
• Leads strategy, coordination, and review of interdisciplinary research programs​, including overseeing University research centers, institutes and shared/core facilities — especially those able to drive national and international recognition for ECU’s research expertise.
• Leads University-wide efforts to strengthen the research ecosystem​ and communicate the state and impact of the University’s research enterprise.
• Develops and stewards relationships and linkages between ECU and federal and state funding agencies​, and expands research opportunities with partners in industry and external institutions.
• Identifies, allocates, and leverages resources to enhance and sustain a vibrant University research culture. Builds and promotes institutional investments to support proposals for achieving higher levels of extramural funding, especially in University-identified priority areas​
• Creates programs to support and educate faculty (at every career stage) and research personnel to support pursuit of sponsored activities​
• Facilitates interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations to address complex societal challenges​
• Evaluates and provides support for research infrastructure for a broad range of faculty and staff.
• Promotes and sustains a service-oriented research administration culture including providing professional development opportunities for research administration and compliance staff to remain current with trends in practice as well as the regulatory environment​.