Plenary VIII: Conducting Research: The Institutional Official (IO) as the Conductor

When we imagine an orchestra conductor, we may picture someone in fancy clothes standing with their back to the audience while addressing the musicians with arm, hand, head, and body motions. However, this is just the tip of the conductor's iceberg. There are, rather, myriad activities, visions, steps, decisions, adjustments, competing priorities, and egos that must be directed, managed, determined, or resolved before the conductor steps on the stage to lead anywhere from 15 to 100 musicians in the production of an integrated sound. While not a perfect analogy, so too with the IO and their collaboration with the research community. An institution’s research productivity is at least in part due to the IO’s ‘conducting of the institution’s research enterprise, so disparate components can perform as an integrated research community, their vision: management of competing priorities and interests, balancing the wants of researchers and the research community at large, building and supporting infrastructure, etc. In this session, a panel of IOs (or their designees) will share and reflect upon their experiences ‘conducting’ their institution's orchestra of researchers.