Motivating and Enabling Mid-Career Scholars: Two Case Studies in Research Development

Supporting mid-career faculty is a potentially effective area of influence for research development professionals in colleges and universities. Institutional contexts are crucial in establishing sustained levels of faculty success in research, scholarship, and creative works across the academic disciplines. Midcareer faculty often report or experience challenges after tenure due to factors such as burnout and fatigue, teaching and service obligations, a lack of vision and focus, and insufficient mentoring and skill development. Two research universities have developed prestigious fellowship programs to support scholarly excellence among mid-career faculty, which brings research developers into this work and challenges the misconception that scholars need no support or guidance post-tenure. In this article, we describe these programs and lessons learned, in the hope that these models may be helpful to research development professionals and leaders on other campuses.