In the fall of 2011, the Office of Business Practice Improvement (BPI) launched a project to identify and recommend opportunities for improve- ment in research administration at all levels of the university (including the department/division, school/unit, and central).

In order to identify opportunities for improvement, the project Working Group (consisting of 35 faculty & staff from multiple units across campus) conducted approximately 100 focus groups and interviews with approxi- mately 300 faculty, staff, and leaders at Emory; collected feedback from Principal Investigators via an online questionnaire; developed numerous process maps; and analyzed data on processes and resources. As a result of this work, opportunities for improvement were identified and then vetted (checked) by over 120 faculty, staff, and leaders from schools/units and cen- tral research administration offices at Emory.

The project Working Group is about to begin developing recommendations, with input from Subject Matter Experts, faculty, and staff. After recommen- dations are developed, there will be a rigorous vetting process with faculty and staff before recommendations are finalized (likely mid-2012).

For more information about this project, please visit the Research Admin- istration, Phase 1 Project Page on the BPI website: http://bpi.emory.edu.

In addition, BPI will periodically send out email updates about this project. If you wish to receive these updates, please email bpi@emory.edu with the subject line “Research Administration Project Email List