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Authored by:
Zoya Davis-Hamilton
Associate Vice Provost, Research Administration & Development
Tufts University

Sarah Marina
Assistant Director, Research Development
Tufts University

Conceptualized as the sister column to The Pulse, Background Noise is a column devoted to conceptual ideas of interest to the research administration community. It is written by Zoya Davis-Hamilton, Associate Vice Provost, and Sarah Marina, Assistant Director, both of Research Administration and Development at Tufts University. Look for a new column in The Catalyst every few months, whenever an idea pops into our heads, and feel free to send us ideas to feature in future columns at zoya.hamilton@tufts.edu and sarah.marina@tufts.edu.

There are many benefits to promoting talented staff from within. Thoughtful promotions from within boost morale throughout a research administration organization, support service continuity, retain institutional knowledge, and create an operation that survives and thrives over time. With these positives to promotion, why then do institutions often seek outside talent as a first course of action? In our experience, one major reason is the administrative drawbacks to internal hiring. Internal promotions take time to approve and require administrative effort to put forward, and often come from within a more limited budget than external hires. While this is unfortunate and shortsighted from an institutional point of view, the reality is these bureaucratic obstacles are sometimes large enough, and the immediate need so great, that faster action is needed. This can lead managers proposing a promotion to give up or an employee on the promotion track to exit the organization before the long-promised promotion takes effect.

Institutions in areas with many research universities and hospitals know all too well the perennial revolving door of research administrators. With so great a need, and the roadblocks discussed above to promoting from within, it is often easier for a research administrator to advance their career by changing institutions. We posit that a policy of thoughtful, institutionally supported internal promotions could slow the revolving door, making it easier for talented staff to advance their career by staying within an institution. When an employee at any level of seniority exits the institution, the manager would be well advised to give first consideration to interested (we don’t endorse poaching from other units) and qualified existing employees, both within and outside of research administration job family. These internal candidates’ talents and abilities are known to managers, and when promoted to fill a vacancy, can aid in more quickly closing service gaps and mitigating stress on remaining staff created by a vacancy.

While we fully support internal promotions, we believe that balance between existing and new staff is needed. Recruitment of outside talent is essential to fill existing skill gaps, maintain diversity in an organization, and bring new perspectives and knowledge. It becomes especially important if there are no internal candidates that are able to promote and implement the vision of the leadership of an institution. With that said, we think that a mix of outside hiring and promotion is a winning strategy for research administration, one which both brings in new talent and demonstrates to existing research administrators that they are valued by the institution.