Fragmented and Underutilized: Exploring Role Variation and Ambiguity for Research Project Managers in Collaborative Team Science

Academic research project managers (RPMs) align with the Project Management Institute on project management definitions, yet report role ambiguity driven by diverse responsibilities across similar titles.

• Why it matters: Collaborative clinical and translational research depends on RPMs, but what research project management entails and how RPMs fit on teams remains unclear.
• What they did: The study analyzed survey responses from 85 academic RPMs and 14 semi-structured follow-up interviews to characterize RPM perspectives and experiences.
• The result: Four themes emerged, including alignment on definitions, variability in responsibilities, and role ambiguity, informing areas of support to improve research project management and translation efficiency.