Faculty Perspectives on Academic Work and Administrative Burden: Implications for the Design of Effective Support Services‪.‬

Introduction Around the world, higher education institutions face significant fiscal pressure and escalating costs. At many institutions, researchers are under increased pressure to obtain funded-project revenue as a way of counteracting a decline in government allocations for higher education (Gumport, 1997; Santos, 2007), with such involvement often seen as a key metric of individual faculty activity and performance. Moreover, heightened demands for accountability, increased competition for research grants, expanded demands on faculty time, and growing complexity and costs related to administering the research enterprise are among the challenges that make achieving institutions' research missions increasingly difficult. It is now commonplace for researchers to collaborate with institutions from multiple countries and even continents. As a result of the increased complexity and scope of research programs, offices of sponsored research have had to adapt to help researchers and their institutions win and manage funding, add value to the research mission and work toward continuous development of the institutional portfolio. There can be little doubt that research and its administration is an increasingly complex endeavor, one which poses opportunities and challenges to those involved in its leadership, administration and delivery.