At a university research lab, clinical research operation, or research institute, you coordinate the day-to-day work of research programs — managing schedules, supporting principal investigators, coordinating participants or samples, and the operational backbone behind research execution.
Days mix participant or subject coordination, study-team support, and regulatory documentation — scheduling and consenting research participants, supporting PI and study-staff with administrative work, maintaining study files, processing IRB submissions and renewals, coordinating data collection. Study enrollment, regulatory compliance, and study-team support quality shape the visible measures.
The harder part is often the regulatory dimension — clinical and human-subjects research operates under IRB rules, GCP standards, and sometimes FDA-IND regulations, and study coordinators carry significant compliance responsibility. Variance across employers is wide: academic research labs run with PI-driven structures; clinical-trial sites run under sponsor-driven protocols; CRO-affiliated coordinators run with industry-standard procedures.
This role tends to fit folks who carry administrative discipline, comfort with regulatory text, and the patient relationship instincts that research participant or study-team work requires. SOCRA or ACRP credentials and growing research-specific exposure anchor advancement. The trade-off is the regulatory documentation overhead and the modest pay typical of research-support roles relative to the careful work the role requires.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
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 lab, clinical research operation, or research institute, you coordinate the day-to-day work of research programs — managing schedules, supporting principal investigators, coordinating participants or samples, and the operational backbone behind research execution.
Median pay for a Research Coordinator is about $141K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $61K to $208K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Active Listening, Speaking, Science, Reading Comprehension, and Reading Comprehension.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 3.67% through 2034, with roughly 204,690 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Employment Research and Planning Director, Agriculture Research Director, and Agricultural Research Director.
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