KLK believes strongly in the power of the highly informed and highly engaged team. Included in the mission of the organisation or unit and encouraged to developed ownership and expertise in their role, the team member performs at a higher level with greater confidence and enthusiasm. Taking a look at your organisational chart, identifying gaps and redundancies, clarifying the mission and tasks to undertake, KLK will work with you to build a creative and confident team well positioned to handle the scope and scale of the research administration requirements in your institution.
With close to 20 years in research administration experience in a top tier U15 Canadian university, KLK is well-equipped to advise on Research Management/Administration (R/MA) in your organisation. Kristen has held virtually every role found in a Canadian university: pre and post award administration, research facilitator, research ethics board administrator, Manager, and Director. She has worked with bodies to develop research funding programs that make sense to both funder and the funded, ensuring that programming is relevant, accessible, and sustainable. Kristen built a successful and vital research office from the ground up, from a sole employee to a complex, multi-role powerhouse before leaving to pursue research administration consultancy. Prior to entering the university, Kristen was engaged in research administration in a non-profit organisation in the agriculture sector, now reinforcing our increasing awareness of the staggeringly broad scope of RM/A as a profession. In this role, Kristen built and administered a research funding program for the organisation; and perhaps foreshadowing her next career move, awarded funding to individuals and research institutions including universities in the Canadian U15.
Passionate about the often-unheralded important work that these tireless organisations perform, KLK can provide support to boards and staff of NPOs who are engaged in grant making, grant writing, administration of funding and creation of policy and programming. Kristen honed her administrative skills in leadership positions in NPOs in the agriculture, arts and culture, and regional business development sectors. Kristen has worked for, developed and sat on, boards across a broad spectrum, understands their nature and the challenges they encounter. KLK can help boards with fundraising, and in supporting their staff teams in meeting policy and programming goals.
The university is a complex organisation, with myriad layers of hierarchy and a multitude of administrators, both executive and mid-level, faculty and Deans and all of this is informed by, and infused with, years (decades or even a century or more) of history, culture, and politics. For those new to the (Canadian) university, it may be a challenge to reach the right people with your product or service, a bigger challenge to implement it, and an almost insurmountable challenge to have it be sustainable without the right guidance. KLK can offer this sort of guidance, developed over years of experience in shepherding (both successfully and less so, but learning why) private sector-built research tools into the university. Kristen’s Master's thesis was wholly concerned with the introduction to and sustainability of participatory research tools in the university, and she understands the opportunities and pitfalls for those who would like to bring their technology to an institution that may be excited about, but not always prepared to accept it. For those not new to the university sector, but new to the Canadian context, KLK can assist in providing valuable insights and advice for those groups as well, as the environment can differ greatly from institutions outside Canada, both in terms of the compliance and regulatory environment, but more importantly, in terms of culture.