Research Administration – How Many Languages Do You Speak?
We live in a multicultural world, and there are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world. Today’s technology allows us to learn with language apps such as Babbel and Duolingo, even teaching Navajo and Hawaiian languages. We use it daily in our home for Italian, French and Russian, but we are far from fluent. Professionally, we often have to learn another language – or add to the vocabulary we already have. For example, fluency in grant speak is critical for research administrators, thus it comes to communicating with our PIs and other departments, and there’s no app for that.
After attending school for accounting (twice), I earned a BS in accounting – so I am at least bi-lingual. My first language is English, and with my degree and work in accounting – that makes for my second language. To be honest, numbers and math are kind of a love language to me. Ten years ago, I began working in research administration after years in accounting and managing Department of Labor funding. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was going to have to learn a new language and fast. In meeting with my PIs for the first time, I watched the shutters fall over their eyes as I dove too deep into the financial details as I didn’t quite know my audience.
Fast-forward a few months, and words like salary cap and abbreviations like SNAP, FFR, RPPR, became automatic, and I could understand and manage other support and biosketches. Meeting with my PIs, I started developing my third language – grant speak. I asked about progress, let them know their burn rate tied to completion of the study – instead of just numbers. My accounting and grant language merged together as we talked about average burn rate and their estimated remaining support. During the annual budget season, I was happy that I was fluent in accounting as I worked with the PIs in translating their budgets from year to year and considering inflation, new hires, and bridge funding. Even within research administration grants language, there are different “dialects” – as there is “PI” grant communication and the communication with our internal and external research administrator colleagues.
After joining Benaroya Research Institute, I broadened my vocabulary to include clinical trial language – a subset of the grant/research speak. I was the only one in my department responsible for the clinical research program’s federal and non-profit clinical trial studies. I needed to ramp up my skills and learn new terms and information, and quickly. Fortunately, I attended the SRAI Western Section Meeting in Portland, Oregon and worked towards my Research Integrity Certificate. I attended the SRAI workshops led by Tonya Edvalson, whose background is in human subjects research and compliance. Listening to the engaging workshop and hearing Tonya talk about research, compliance, and the evolution of human subjects research, my understanding grew and I could understand the language even better. The IND and IDE made more sense, while IRB, and human exemption 4, all became second nature as I started using my clinical trial language more and more.
I can’t wait to attend the SRAI Western/Mid-West section meeting in Colorado, where the Clinical Trials Research Administration certificate is available in full, as well as Leadership, and Introduction to Research Administration and Management (otherwise known as improving your grant language fluency). We can never know too many research administration languages.
Authored by Linda Dement, Grant & Finance Program Manager
Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason
SRAI Western Section President
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