Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the 13th Annual Pre-Award Research Administration (PRA) Conference! There’s no other destination on earth quite like Las Vegas, and no better place to host the conference, than at The Mirage, the original center-Strip mega-resort, with its iconic volcano firing nightly.
This year’s theme -- “Lucky #13: Odds-on-favorite to...Learn. Connect. Lead.” -- accentuates how you can find success at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. More than just a collection of professional development offerings, you will be able to immerse yourself to…
Learn: Whether you’ve been in research administration for less than one week at a predominantly undergraduate institution or more than twenty years in a department at a top ranked research institution in the world, it’s a sure bet there are Workshops and Educational Sessions and Discussion Groups from mainstay tracks designed to meet your educational needs. You’ll gain insights, for example, on federal hot topics and regulation changes, developing more competitive applications, and cultivating and managing global relationships.
Connect: It’s a research administrator jackpot: Dr. Laurie Santos will deliver the Keynote Address. Drawing from her course “Psychology and the Good Life,” the most popular class in Yale’s 300-year history, you’ll learn what psychological research says about what makes us happy and how to put those strategies into practice. Interact with new and long-time friends at breakfast roundtables, networking luncheons and refreshment breaks, plus dinner groups. The connections you make today become the go-to contacts you’ll leverage tomorrow for knowledge, advice, and opportunities.
Lead: You don’t have to be a high roller to engage in Educational Sessions and Discussion Groups from special tracks including career development, leadership, research development, and sponsored research administration. You’ll recognize the attitudes and actions necessary, for instance, to implement best practices at your institution, chart your long-term career trajectory, and inspire staff and supervisors to become their best selves.
As you can tell, PRA is the natural choice: a premier conference event that sets you up in local and global contexts with the research administration knowledge you need presently and the professional networks you need for the future. Let’s go all-in to make “Lucky #13” your best PRA conference ever!
Supporting Research…together,
Jeremy Miner and Dan Nordquist