Collaborative and operational leadership (colead): leading from all levels toward research excellence and sustainability

Seattle University received a $2.05 million Project Grant awarded on September 15, 2025, under the National Science Foundation's Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) to implement the Collaborative and Operational Leadership (COLEAD) initiative. The project, scheduled for completion on August 31, 2030, delivers capacity-building services and research infrastructure support designed to increase faculty participation in the national research enterprise from teaching-intensive institutions (TIIs). Through a collaborative leadership model centered on the institution's Office of Research and Sponsored Projects, the project provides institutional infrastructure development, faculty and staff capacity enhancement, and streamlined research administration processes that address the structural limitations TIIs face compared to research-intensive institutions with dedicated research leadership and resources.

The COLEAD initiative produces three primary deliverables: establishment of a structural collaborative leadership model that sustains strategic research and sponsored project leadership capacity; implementation of coordinated procedural research infrastructure and streamlined processes for research development and grant management; and development of a systematic, replicable approach that can be adopted by other TIIs to strengthen their research environments. This project aligns with the Integrative Activities program's goal of enhancing the nation's research competitiveness through institutional capacity strengthening and broadened participation across diverse institution types.

Abstract

The collaborative and operational leadership (colead) project aims to increase the participation of faculty from teaching-intensive institutions (tiis) in the national research enterprise. Distinct from research-intensive institutions which often have divisions devoted to research (i.e. an office of research) and/or senior administrators (i.e. a vice president of research) solely dedicated to advancing research activity, research leadership at tiis is often led by an administrator with multiple duties such as a provost or vice provost. This fragmentation of duties, combined with limited resources to create and support a research environment, may result in lower research productivity among faculty at tiis. This project addresses this absence of dedicated research leadership through a collaborative leadership model led by the institution?s office of research and sponsored projects (or equivalent) and a guiding body of campus leaders. To increase the participation of faculty from teaching-intensive institutions (tiis) in the nation?s research enterprise, the goal of colead is to build capacity and research support infrastructure using a replicable, systematic approach guided by collaborative leadership. The project includes three aims: aim 1 ? Build institutional capacity using a structural collaborative leadership model that provides sustained infrastructure for strategic research and sponsored project leadership, resulting in increased capacity for developing, maintaining, and executing a strategic vision for research; aim 2 ? Driven by the collaborative leadership model, increase the capacity of faculty and staff and streamline processes for research development and grant management through a coordinated and sustainable procedural research infrastructure model; and aim 3 - build a systematic, replicable approach based upon the collaborative leadership and research infrastructure model, resulting in an organizational change toolkit that tiis can use to grow and sustain research and research development by leveraging existing resources. The toolkit will be tested and iteratively refined in partnership with two peer institutions. The proposed collaborative leadership model will be informed by institutional external assessments, peer research, selected peer advisors, and guided by a faculty with expertise in organizational change, teaming, and strategic planning. The model will be documented in the toolkit and disseminated widely through national networks. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.