The profession of research administration is often one that people fall into, rather than one they formally train for throughout their education. Although post-secondary institutions are starting to recognize the need for this type of training, many Research Administrators working in academia today landed in their role simply because their personality and skill set were well suited to the work.

To be successful in this field, you must have a passion for providing excellent customer service, a willingness to learn on the job, the ability to be flexible as you work with investigators that have different needs and work styles, and strong communication and organizational skills. And a high tolerance for paperwork doesn’t hurt anything!

This often results in a workforce that has mostly taken different paths to arrive at the same destination and the CLAS grant support staff is no exception. We are fortunate to have skilled teams of pre-award and post-award staff, with decades of experience among them, all working towards the common goal of supporting investigators in successfully seeking and managing external funding.