North Dakota State University has opened the search for its next Vice President for Research and Creative Activity, a cabinet-level role that carries responsibility for the university's research strategy, sponsored programs, regulatory compliance, technology transfer, and creative activity portfolio. The position is listed on AcademicJobs.com for application, and candidates submit their materials through a dedicated portal tied to the search.
A vice president for research does not run a single laboratory. The person who takes this job runs the administrative system every research group on campus depends on: sponsored project approval, award negotiation, financial management, human subjects and animal care protections, export controls, intellectual property, and the shared core facilities where instruments and expertise live. At NDSU, the position reports to the president and works with deans, department chairs, and faculty governance to decide where the university concentrates its research effort.
Why This Search Is Starting From a Higher Baseline
The search opens just after North Dakota State's research profile changed in a durable way. In the February 2025 update to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the university was listed among the nation's Research 1 doctoral institutions, the designation for very high research activity. That change matters because it resets the comparison group. Search committees and candidates will now measure NDSU's sponsored funding, doctoral production, research space, and faculty research capacity against a broader set of high-activity public and private universities.
North Dakota State's research strengths have long run through agriculture, plant sciences, advanced materials, and engineering, with close ties to the state's farming and energy economy. The new classification gives those programs a credential that registers with federal agencies, industry partners, private foundation program staff, and prospective faculty. It also raises the expectation that the next vice president can defend and grow that position rather than hold it flat.
What the Vice President Actually Controls
The portfolio is less abstract than an org chart can make it seem. The vice president signs off on the offices that turn ideas into funded projects and then into compliant spending. NDSU's Office of Research and Creative Activity publishes details on sponsored programs, compliance, and core facilities, and each of those units answers to the vice president.
The role runs through several specific routes:
- Sponsored programs administration, including proposal review, award setup, post-award financial management, and cost share tracking.
- Research development, the unit that helps faculty find funding opportunities and shape proposals before they reach a program officer.
- Compliance committees for human subjects, animal care, biosafety, and export control.
- Technology transfer and industry partnerships, which include patent licensing, material transfer agreements, and university startup formation.
- Creative activity and scholarship support, a deliberately broad remit stretching from studio art, design, books, and performances to public humanities projects.
Each of those routes has a different constituency. A senior sponsored programs officer can make or break a research career with turnaround time on a subaward, a budget revision, or a no-cost extension. The next vice president will have to be fluent in every one of those processes without letting the central office become the place where proposals slow down.
Research Administration Runs on Numbers
The federal Higher Education Research and Development Survey, run by the National Science Foundation, tracks how much money U.S. universities spend on research and development each year. In the latest complete data, total university R&D spending across the country passed $97 billion. A substantial share of that total sits in institutions with the same very high research activity label NDSU now holds. Those campuses judge research vice presidents less by policy language and more by whether sponsored awards, indirect cost recovery, and faculty proposals are moving in the right direction year over year.
NDSU's submitted data to the NSF indicate research expenditures in roughly the $150 million to $180 million range in recent reporting years, with external awards above $100 million annually. More important than any single headline number is the funding mix. A campus that depends too heavily on one federal agency is one appropriation cycle away from serious strain. A campus with awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, industry, and state programs across agriculture, advanced manufacturing, and data systems has more ways to absorb a budget shift.
The Carnegie classification that elevated NDSU is searchable through the Carnegie Classifications database, and the NSF survey has full university-level breakdowns for anyone who wants to compare against peer institutions.
What This Means for Your Lab
Behind the title is a very human test of turnaround time. A researcher—call her Dr. K—submits a proposal for a National Science Foundation early-career award. Her department approves the budget. Her dean signs. The proposal then sits in central sponsored programs for nine working days because a compliance checklist item about export controls has to be checked by hand. Neither the department nor the researcher can see where the file is. That delay may not sound like a leadership failure in isolation, but it repeats across dozens of submissions every cycle and spends the trust a new vice president needs from faculty.
If you hold a lab, a studio, or a research group at NDSU, the practical signal will arrive before any strategic plan does. Watch how the next vice president's office handles proposal submission windows, subaward setup, no-cost extensions, and award closeout. Ask whether faculty can see real-time status on pending awards and whether compliance decisions are made by staff who understand the science, not only the form. If you are a candidate, ask those same questions from the other side of the table.
The base rate for this class of hire is predictable: a vice president for research gets pulled toward external relationships, legislative visits, donor conversations, and federal agency meetings. The exception is an administrator who installs a service-minded chief of staff and a strong sponsored programs director early, then protects their authority. That is the difference between a leader researchers trust and one they route around.
Applying and Reading the Position Carefully
The full posting is on the AcademicJobs.com page for Vice President for Research and Creative Activity at North Dakota State University, and the direct application portal is at apptrkr.com/9852088. Candidates should expect to submit a curriculum vitae and a letter that speaks directly to research leadership, sponsored program growth, creative activity support, and faculty mentoring. Those are the areas a search committee at this level will read against the posted required qualifications before it reads anything else.
If you currently serve as a vice provost, associate vice president, or center director, anchor the first page of your letter in numbers: total award dollars you have helped secure, the volume of proposals supported, the compliance programs you have rebuilt, and the faculty you have helped retain. If you are a faculty member considering the move from a lab or department chair role, the same figures matter, but the narrative has to show experience managing people and budgets across a college or an institute.
For NDSU faculty and staff who are not applying, the search still deserves attention. The finalist will help set priorities for seed funding, research computing, core facility fees, and creative activity support. If the search committee holds campus listening sessions, use one of them to make a single concrete request rather than reading a long wish list.
The single most useful thing you can do today is open the full position announcement and read the section on responsibilities next to the section on expected qualifications. Note where the two overlap; that is the job. If your record does not align on most of those overlapping areas, hold the application until you can document the missing evidence. If it does align, use the cover letter to show the search committee exactly where the overlap lives.
