Research Programs Director

Research Programs Director

Heralded as a hub of undergraduate innovation, the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE) creates and sustains meaningful interactions between students and faculty both within and outside the classroom. As a collaborative team member of VPUE, you have a unique opportunity to advance and support programs that touch and enhance the lives of every undergraduate student at Stanford.

The Research and Independent Projects Team, within the Vice Provost Office (VPO), facilitates student participation in original scholarship and fosters intellectual relationships between students and faculty mentors. This collaborative team serves as a bridge between Stanford University's educational and research missions by offering students funding, support, and programming to enable their project ideas across all disciplines.

The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE) is seeking a Research Programs Director (RPD) to become part of the Research and Independent Projects Team, reporting to the Senior Director of Undergraduate Research. The RPD will provide strategic direction and manage a nuanced review and selection process for VPUE's Student Grant programs, which fund undergraduate students engaged in independent research, arts, and senior synthesis projects across all disciplines.

The RPD will implement and interpret university and department policies and procedures, and will identify and resolve complex issues using expert technical and professional knowledge of academic research and University policy, as well as independent judgment. The RPD will build and maintain collaborative relationships with other university administrative and service offices, academic departments, programs, staff, and faculty.

In this role, you will:

• Provide strategic direction for the Student Grants Program, the flagship funding resource for undergraduate researchers age policy design, program planning, and forecasting and allocation of a $1.5 million annual budget. Ensure continued value and relevance of the program to the University's research mission.
• Design new policies and practices to broaden impact and reach of undergraduate research funding and be more inclusive of underserved student populations. Identify and eliminate academic and administrative hurdles within the control of Undergraduate Research to improve transparency and lower barriers to participation.
• Ensure that all program components and processes attend to the complexities of research practice and administration, including compliance with federal, local, and University policy on undergraduate research.
• Collaborate regularly with multiple stakeholders (including Academic Advising, the Haas Center for Public Service, the Financial Aid Office, Stanford's Institutional Review Board, and the Office of Global Risk) to arrive at tenable solutions when complex conflicts arise.
• Maintain a highly nuanced application and selection process resulting in hundreds of competitive grants annually across all undergraduate disciplines. Design application materials and requirements, assign reviewers by relevant discipline, facilitate grant review sessions, provide written feedback to all student applicants, administer final award decisions based on selection committee's recommendations, and oversee acceptance requirements and payment process for awardees.
• Leverage a range of information systems in support of grant application and disbursement processes, and collaborate in the refinement and evolution of those systems.
• Recruit, retain, and train 20+ independent collaborators who contribute to grant review, fellowship administration, research advising, and communication processes for the team.
• Review and adjudicate requests for exceptions from students and faculty at all points of application and selection process. Consider appeals of rejected applications to ensure fairness, and escalate complex appeals as appropriate.
• Collaborate with other team members to align policies, identify and solve strategic and programmatic challenges, and implement new ideas.
• Analyze and measure accessibility and effectiveness of grant programs by…