Are Research Offices Strong Enough at Grant-Writing Support?

p strongResearch offices receive better evaluations at larger and public institutions, but relatively few faculty rate their proposal-writing knowledge as excellent./strong/p p Primary Research Group's survey of 378 faculty found that 18.52% considered their research office's knowledge of proposal writing excellent. Public institutions generally received more favorable ratings than private institutions, particularly for fellowship knowledge and grant-writing support. Large and mid-sized institutions also tended to outperform smaller institutions./p p Scale likely matters because effective support requires sponsor intelligence, budget expertise, compliance knowledge, editing and enough staff capacity to work before a deadline becomes urgent. Smaller institutions may not be able to reproduce a major research university's office, but they can decide which services are most valuable and where outside or consortial expertise fills gaps./p p Research offices should separate transactional performance from developmental value. Fast routing and accurate budgets are essential so are help finding opportunities, strengthening narratives and planning resubmissions. Short post-submission surveys and structured debriefs can identify where faculty experience breaks down./p p The strongest improvement target is specific. Leaders should ask whether faculty need more opportunity discovery, proposal review, sponsor interpretation or project-management support&mdashand then measure response time, uptake and outcomes for that service./p p  /p