At a university, research institute, or sponsored-research office, you administer the operations behind research programs — pre-award support, grant submission, post-award management, compliance, and the steady administrative backbone of research operations.
Most weeks involve pre-award and post-award work, principal-investigator support, and compliance coordination — supporting PI grant submissions, managing post-award financial and compliance reporting, coordinating with sponsors (NIH, NSF, foundations, industry), supporting IRB and IACUC compliance. Grants submitted on time, post-award compliance, and sponsor satisfaction shape the visible measures.
What gets demanding is the regulatory and sponsor complexity — research administration touches federal grant regulations (Uniform Guidance, FAR, agency-specific rules), IRB and IACUC compliance, conflict-of-interest disclosure, and intellectual-property rules, and the administrator works across all of them. Variance across employers is wide: large research universities run with mature OSP-style offices; smaller institutions concentrate research administration on a smaller team.
The role tends to fit folks who carry administrative discipline, comfort with regulatory text, and the diplomatic touch that PI relationships require. CRA, certified-research-administrator credentials, and growing exposure to sponsor-specific rules anchor advancement. The trade-off is the regulatory complexity and the cumulative load of managing many parallel grants across their lifecycles.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
At a university, research institute, or sponsored-research office, you administer the operations behind research programs — pre-award support, grant submission, post-award management, compliance, and the steady administrative backbone of research operations.
Median pay for a Research Administrator is about $161K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $80K to $208K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Science, Reading Comprehension, Active Listening, Monitoring, and Critical Thinking.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 3.7% through 2034, with roughly 100,870 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Employment Research and Planning Director, Agricultural Research Director, and Agriculture Research Director.
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