Internal Competitions Manager, Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors

Job Posting Title:

Internal Competitions Manager, Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors

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Hiring Department:

Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors

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Position Open To:

All Applicants

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Weekly Scheduled Hours:

40

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FLSA Status:

Exempt

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Earliest Start Date:

Immediately

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Position Duration:

Expected to Continue

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Location:

AUSTIN, TX

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Job Details:

General Notes

The mission of the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors (OVPR) is to foster the expansion of the scale, quality, and impact of scholarly endeavors at UT Austin. We are committed to building capacity, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and lowering the barriers and burden involved in scientific and creative inquiry through the development of an investigator-focused infrastructure that supports the needs of UT Austin's research enterprise.

UT Austin offers a competitive benefits package that includes:  

• 100% employer-paid basic medical coverage  

• Retirement contributions

• Paid vacation and sick time

• Paid holidays

• Eligible for hybrid telework

Please visit our Human Resources (HR) website to learn more about the total benefits offered.

Purpose

Contribute to enhancing UT Austin’s competitiveness in securing competitive external research funding by administering internal competitions and honorific awards nomination processes for select university-wide research opportunities, and by overseeing select OVPR internal funding programs.

Responsibilities

Internal Competitions and Limited Submissions

• As a member of the OVPR Research Development portfolio, reporting to the Program Director – OVPR-Administered Competitions, manage internal competitions to select the university’s nominees for research funding opportunities for which the sponsor imposes limits on the number of proposals that the university may submit. Anticipated workload is 60-75 internal competitions per year. Duties include identifying, reviewing, and evaluating federal and non-federal funding opportunities; disseminating calls for internal proposal submissions across the university; consulting on eligibility, and clarifying and resolving issues when necessary. Coordinate faculty peer review of submitted applications, including recruiting and assigning peer reviewers, collecting written feedback, and compiling rankings/feedback to determine competition awardees, using the university’s InfoReady platform. Communicate and track competition outcomes to submitters. Maintain a database of recurring internal competitions for the OVPR website and for internal OVPR use. Create best practices documents, operating procedures, and improve processes to ensure fair and transparent reviews.

Honorific Award Nominations

• Manage the process for choosing university nominees for select faculty honorific awards for research.  Duties include identifying, reviewing, and evaluating honorific opportunities; disseminating calls for internal submissions across the university; consulting on eligibility, and clarifying and resolving issues when necessary. Use national benchmarking datasets to identify prospective nominees for these research awards and provide competitive intelligence about the awards to those prospective nominees. Coordinate faculty peer review of submitted applications, including recruiting and assigning peer reviewers, collecting written feedback, and compiling rankings/feedback to determine competition awardees. Assist with editing and compiling nominees’ application materials for submission to the external sponsor. Assist with submission of institutional nominations for said awards as necessary.

Internal Funding Programs

• Coordinate the grantmaking process for the OVPR Research and Creative Grants, Special Research Grants, and Subvention Grants programs. The Research and Creative Grants are run annually and involve soliciting applications and reviewers to select a small number of projects to support for the year. Special Research Grants and Subvention Grants are open on a rolling basis until each year’s funding runs out. Additionally, the Internal Competitions Manager will provide backup to the Program Director of Proposal Support to aid non-OVPR UT entities with the use of InfoReady for their own competitions and will backup competitions managed by the Pr