An ambassador is a community builder, acting as an extension of the RM Roadmap consortium.

RM Roadmap will recruit Country Community Ambassadors and Communities of Practice Ambassadors. Country Community Ambassadors will represent their country or region of origin, making it both necessary and practical to select candidates through existing national or regional associations or networks.

Communities of Practice Ambassadors will represent a segment related to a specific thematic group. The recruitment procedure is formalised through an open call.

The position as ambassador is voluntary and not salaried (not requiring contract).

You will however be reimbursed for up to three in-person ambassador meetings during the RM Roadmap project period and receive free training in community building and facilitation.

You will find the information on this website when available.

You will also be able to sign up to the Knowledge and Community Platform to find out more.

An exciting new online co-creation space. The RM Roadmap Knowledge and Community Platform will bring research managers and administrators (RMAs) together to shape the future of the profession. It’s a place where RMAs can share their views, information on available training, funding and introduce issues for discussion. Through this we seek to build recognition for the profession by understanding the needs of the community.

The primary role of the ambassador is to make sure that information from the project flows into the relevant research management (RM) community. The ambassador should advocate for the community to join the co-creation exercise in an active way and assist in the onboarding process.

The ambassador is the first point of contact for the community members.

Using the online community facility on the Knowledge and Community Platform, the ambassador will stimulate discussion during topic sessions.

Ambassadors will be invited up to three in-person meetings during the RM Roadmap project period, and receive free training in community building and facilitation.

There are up to two ambassadors per country community or community of practice, with up to two associate ambassadors.

Begin by identifying who in your community may be interested in upcoming topic sessions. Invite them to engage on our Knowledge and Community Platform, encouraging them to use their voice and experience to influence the discussion.

Ambassadors will operate online during each open-duration topic session, to guide the discourse and summarise key points. We foresee five topic sessions over three years. The work is shared with other ambassadors from your country's community or community of practice.

We foresee up to five discussion sessions between September 2023 – March 2025, with each session lasting around 6 weeks. As an ambassador, you are responsible for bringing as much input as possible from the RM community, so it is your role to activate and stimulate the discussion.

Your needed contribution very much depends on the natural flow of conversation or the lack of it. You should be present online at least a few times a week. Please allocate some time to prepare a final report after the discussion period ends

Ambassadors will produce a short summary of the discussion following a standard template. This text will be presented in the online community, with members invited to anonymously support the text or not.

A consortium member will then analyse the text and its indication of support. A non-supported text may either be reformulated or fully changed on the initiative of the ambassador or the consortium.

Ambassadors can help each other and draw on their community for support in drafting texts; they take full ownership and responsibility of the final version.

Reasonable travel reimbursement is provided for ambassador meetings, solely for the appointed ambassador.

Additional KCP users may be authorised as admins on the online community, based on the recommendation of an ambassador and acceptance of the KCP guidelines and terms and conditions.

In addition to the topic sessions, the ambassador is very much encouraged to set up or speak at relevant national thematic events or meetings. They should inform their project contact, who will facilitate them in informing their community about the project and KCP activity. Please note that ambassadors cannot make commitments of any kind related to the project.

If the ambassador is representing a community supported by a national network or association, the ambassador is expected to periodically brief that network or association.

The first face-to-face meeting for Country Community Ambassadors was held on May 9-10, 2023, in Budapest, Hungary. The first online topic session started taking place in October 2023. The second face-to-face meeting will take place on the 13th of March 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. This will be followed by the second online session 14th to 28th of March 2024, for both Country Community and Communities of Practice Ambassadors.

We have divided national communities between the RM Roadmap partners. You will be contacted directly by one of our partners who will become your main contact. In case of general project issues, please contact projects@earma.org

You will have the opportunity to network and learn by joining up to three in-person workshops in Budapest, Lisbon and Brussels/online. Each will significantly develop their own network, and towards the end of the project may become an advisor for the RM-Roadmap actions, including input to relevant EU policy. You will be a crucial part of an important, positive change in your research management community.

Yes, we welcome all participants - sign up to the Knowledge and Community Platform and take part in the online discussions. Onboarding will take place in September 2023. Please find the RM Roadmap project timeline in the main homepage.

Yes, a national Ambassador can also become a thematic Ambassador. However, to widen the community, the recruitment of new Ambassadors will be prioritized.

A ‘theme’ is here defined as: “groups of related tasks relating to specific purposes within the support and management of research, performed by staff members that are not themselves active researchers”. Many of the themes overlap partly or substantially with other professions—for example, communications, HR, finance or legal—but all are connected by their decisive roles in supporting research, making them necessary for the research to function and have success.

Themes will reflect subcategories of the research management (RM) profession. The pre-identified list is not intended to be comprehensive. For the purpose of the RM Roadmap co-creation sessions, the project consortium had to limit the choice to a maximum of 10 thematic groups.

Recruiting thematic ambassadors to the RM Roadmap Ambassadors Network will draw on the experiences from the recruitment of country ambassadors in 2022-2023. Thematic Ambassadors will represent a theme or category (a subdivision of the RM profession) while RM Roadmap National Ambassadors inform their national/local communities about the RM Roadmap project.