The Director of Research leads UROC’s mission-driven work related to community-engaged scholarship and research in UROC’s community-identified priority areas: health and wellness,
education and lifelong learning, and community and economic development. Areas of responsibility include:
- Working with the UROC Advisory Council to identify potential research questions, develop university-community research and engagement teams to address the questions, and identify and support funding proposals to support the research.
- Designing, conducting, and reporting on studies for each project that provide formative and summative evaluation of strategies for implementation and dissemination as well as of partnership practices and quality.
- Contributing to the scholarly literature on university-community partnerships and related areas such as implementation science or translational research.
- Co-leading UROC graduate student and faculty research fellows programs.
- Contributing to the Office of Public Engagement’s professional development agenda to build capacity of the University’s faculty, staff, and students to do high-quality engaged scholarship in partnership with communities.
- Building research partnerships with university faculty, staff, students, community and governmental organizations, and residents to ensure that UROC is meeting the community-anchored research mission.
The Director of Research is expected to take leadership and responsibility for executing the research agenda but works closely with the Director for Community Engagement. This is a 100%-time, 12-month, annually renewable appointment in the academic and professions series (Job Classification 9742R6, Researcher 6). The position reports directly to the Vice Provost for Public Engagement.
Essential Job Functions
65% Deliver research projects in partnership with community that are ethical, methodologically sound, action-focused, and value-added to communities. Includes all phases of community-engaged research including inception, design, funding applications, data collection, analysis, dissemination, and action, as well as supervision of research staff.
15% Work with campus and community constituents to catalyze engaged scholarship through research-based partnerships at UROC, training and technical assistance on
community-engaged methods and approaches, mentorship of students, interns and fellows, and teaching.
15% Provide a research lens to UROC projects including support for research. With support from the Administrative Services Manager, oversee the partnership affiliation
documentation process and general documentation about UROC as an engaged university unit.
5% Promote the University of Minnesota, UROC, and engaged scholarship on the University of Minnesota campus, nationally, and internationally.