Just ‘non-academics’?

Surprisingly perhaps, knowledge about occupational groups within academia is relatively scant, with an almost exclusive concentration upon teaching staff. The research upon which this article is based aims to fill this gap by focusing upon one specific group, which, to date, has been under-researched: research administrators. Utilizing primarily symbolic interactionist analyses, and based upon qualitative interviews, the project sought to investigate the occupational life-worlds of research administrators.The wide range of roles and divergent responsibilities covered by the title of ‘research administrator’ emerged as salient features, together with the boundary-crossing, ambiguous nature of much research administrative work.The article examines in particular the ‘identity work’ (Prus, 1996) undertaken by research administrators as they seek to resist categorization as ‘mere nonacademics’, and to counteract social invisibility. Administrative–academic relations were also found to constitute a core element within administrators' occupational life-worlds, and the article considers how the putative administrative/academic boundary is often problematized by research administrators.

Research at Small Canadian Universities

Research in Canadian universities has received much attention in recent years. Governments and research councils have encouraged greater communication between industry and university researchers. Recently research councils, university administrators, and university faculty have focused their attention on improving the research environment in small universities. In the paper, the author outlines some of the issues that are deemed important to the conduct of research by faculty at small universities in English Canada. The paper is based on six years' experience as a research administrator at a small university, and on a survey of research administrators, including vice-presidents academic and deans of graduate studies who had research as part of their daily responsibilities. The research was presented initially at the 1988 CAURA meetings. In this paper, some of the issues that are important to the conduct of research at small Canadian universities are outlined.