I laughed out loud at Andrea's response. That was my first thought as well. A satisfaction survey of the PIs would elicit just that response.
I agree with all of Andrea's comments and advice. I believe I am concerned about the goals and objectives of a sponsor survey. Is your intent to blanket your active sponsor pool with a general customer satisfaction survey? Will it be a marketing-type opportunity survey or a targeted survey?
You mention that you are an international institution and will be requesting feedback from your local sponsors, primarily in the middle east. Is this a common practice in your area of the world? I am very curious about this.
In our area of practice, our sponsors are varied:
- Federal Entities (who would not respond to surveys)
- State Entities (who would typically not respond to surveys)
- Local Entities (who may, on occasion, participate in targeted surveys)
- Not for Profit Entities (who might participate in targeted surveys that support their strategic goals)
- Private Sponsors (who are likely to participate in targeted surveys if they relate to the strategic funding)
Andrea mentioned that you might consider a focus group. We have had forums inviting funding partners, investigators, and administrative research units to discuss strategies and support. They have had mixed success. The most successful option for feedback related to executive functions has been the pre-proposal meetings or webinars with specific sponsors. We discuss lessons learned and strategies for success. These are valuable for current and future proposal development and award efforts.
We also encourage our PIs to develop relationships with the sponsoring agencies, their program officers, and in some cases, the contracting officers. This helps us and our administrative units create relationships that support strategic partnerships for future development efforts.
Please post back with additional information. I am very interested in your strategies and how you work with your sponsors in your area.
Thank you for posting such an interesting topic.
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Michelle Davis, M.Ed.
Research Administrator, Office of Research
College of Health Sciences, Boise State University
michelledavis3@boisestate.edu------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 08-30-2022 04:55
From: Cira Mathis
Subject: Sponsor satisfaction survey
Hi all,
Posting on behalf of the Research Services side of my university:
We're developing a survey to send out to the industry sponsors that fund our R&D projects. We seek to measure sponsor satisfaction across multiple facets, e.g.: working with the Research Office, PI/research team engagement, timeliness of deliverables and invoicing, and also hope to collect overall feedback that will help us identify areas of improvement to build positive relationships between our university and our sponsors.
Has anyone conducted a 'sponsor satisfaction survey' like this, and might you be willing to share the questions asked and any lessons learned from the process?
(Note: We are an international university outside the US, not currently a member of UIDP, and our sponsors are primarily in the Middle East. We recognize this may require us to adapt any survey examples to fit context.)
--
Best,
Cira
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Cira Mathis, CRA, PMP
Manager, Internal Programs
University Sponsored Research
Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi
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