Oya Rieger and Roger Schonfeld of Ithaka S+R released a ground-breaking report titled "The Senior Research Officer: Experience, Role, Organizational Structure, Strategic Directions and Challenges" this morning. This study is based primarily on interviews with senior research officers at about 40 large US research universities. I found it to be fascinating reading and am not familiar with any similar recent work. The report can be found at

The Senior Research Officer - Ithaka S+R

The research enterprise continues to grow more complex, competitive, interdisciplinary, and interinstitutional. Although academic research often is conducted in a distributed and grassroots manner, the senior research officer (SRO) plays an increasingly central and unifying role in stewarding research activities and shaping institutional policies and strategies. The SRO—who often holds the title of vice president, vice provost, or vice chancellor for research—typically holds responsibilities inc...

Oya, Roger, and their colleague Jane Radecki will be sharing some of their findings from this work, along with other recent research on the academic research enterprise, in their plenary talk at the Fall 2020 CNI Virtual Member meeting on December 15, 2020; we'll make video of this this presentation publicly available shortly after the session.

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI