SRAI’s Research Law Certificate – A Valuable Credential
Legal issues related to the administration and management of research are incredibly broad, diverse, and dynamic. Every aspect of research administration is interwoven with a panoply of federal, state, and local laws and regulations which drive many research administration and management functions. SRAI’s Research Law Certificate can help navigate this maze while refining research administration expertise.
Research administrators (RAs) frequently work with in-house and sometimes outside counsel. Often, they are forced to work without sufficient support from their Offices of General Counsel (OGC) or external law firms. In many cases, even when counsel is present, research administrators may find that they are the expert and the lawyers the student as it relates to the nuances of funded research. Unless attorneys have supported research grants and contracts, research administrators may need to translate terms and highlight important facts and requirements from external funding – governmental and/or industry.
The SRAI Research Law Certificate is designed to give research administrators an overview of the magnitude of the multiple legal issues associated with research. Research administration professionals do not need to be lawyers to benefit from obtaining this certification as it can assist in communicating with in-house or outside counsel. Likewise, attorneys working in research administration can increase their breadth of expertise by learning about additional areas of research law.
The Research Law Certificate is structured like an executive MBA program. Topics include contract and grant law, personnel and property issues, and multiple diverse federal regulatory issues. More arcane areas such as access to artificial intelligence, confidential information, insurance coverage, conflicts of interest and other ethical issues, drug safety, and international relations are also examined. Legal issues related to research activities also cut across and involve an even wider area ranging from tax law, criminal law and other areas that involve freedom of speech implications.
Participants in the Research Law Certificate program take a required day-long workshop that strives to cover the broad landscape of the law related to the research function. Those wishing to complete the full certification then attend at least one session in each of six more specialized areas. These are Intellectual Property, The Players (the personnel and organizations that play a role in research), Public Policy Issues, Compliance and Ethics, Contracts and Grants, and Evolving/Hot Topics. Many of the individual sessions may qualify for more than one specialty area and some sessions outside the Research Law track may qualify for the Research Law certificate.
With few exceptions, all the sessions and the workshop involve legally trained instructors/presenters. The workshop is led by attorneys, including SRAI’s own counsel, while the Research Law Track Chairs are directly involved with the selection of sessions to support the Research Law certificate. Through this base and specialty structure and annual selection of approved sessions SRAI seeks to offer a certificate program that affords research administrators with awareness and exposure to the many legal issues that will become the day-to-day environment they will face on the job – whether in pre- or post- award, technology transfer, laboratory management, or elsewhere in the research function.
The SRAI Research Law Certificate will be offered in full at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. Learn more about the SRAI Certificate Program and sign up for the 2023 Annual Meeting today!
Authored by J. Michael Slocum, President
Slocum & Boddie
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