EARMA / NCURA International Research Management Fellowship Programme

Research is becoming increasingly globalised. The research management profession needs to address this globalisation by learning more about our international colleagues outside Europe, their institutions, and how they work.

To begin to address this need, and as an added benefit for our members, EARMA and NCURA (the National Council of University Research Administrators, www.ncura.edu ) are developing an exchange programme for research managers and administrators, between Europe and the United States (US).

The aim is that research institutions in the US will 'host' research managers and administrators from European countries for a limited amount of time, in order to share best practice and learn about each other. Similarly, European organisations will host research managers and administrators from the US. We aim to foster greater understanding and communications between US and EU research administrators to enhance the collaborations between our researchers and our institutions. We have provisionally named this the EARMA / NCURA International Research Management Fellowship Programme.

As a preliminary step, in April 2008, we assessed the interest amongst EARMA members for such a programme, using an online survey. Both NCURA and EARMA sent this questionnaire to their respective members to get an idea as to whether there was sufficient interest in further development of this programme. The results were overwhelmingly positive.

We look forward to developing this initiative with you.