Vice Chancellor for Research

The University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley), the nation’s premier public research university, seeks a collaborative, experienced, and principled leader to serve as its next Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR).

The VCR joins the institution at a pivotal moment. Poised to lead new discoveries and solve complex global challenges, Berkeley aims to push the boundaries of knowledge, foster innovation, expand opportunities, and cultivate a welcoming environment for individuals of all backgrounds over the next decade. The VCR has the opportunity to engage with UC Berkeley's Strategic Planning, which includes fundamental inquiry, use-inspired research for global grand challenges, and enhancing research sustainability.

Working closely with other campus leaders and a broad range of stakeholders across campus, the VCR will advance research across the campus by promoting and supporting discovery, scholarship, innovation, entrepreneurship, and interdisciplinary collaboration while addressing administrative complexities, research compliance requirements, and upgrades to research facilities and services. The VCR will also collaborate with external stakeholders, nationally and internationally, relevant to Berkeley’s research mission.

About the University of California, Berkeley

Chartered in 1868, as the flagship of the University of California (UC) system, UC Berkeley is situated on a hillside overlooking the San Francisco Bay. It is consistently recognized for the quality of its faculty and students, the depth of its research, and its leadership in the national dialogue on the future of higher education. More information can be found on UC Berkeley’s Points of Pride.

Role of the Vice Chancellor for Research

Reporting directly to the Chancellor and the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP), the VCR plays a critical role in advancing Berkeley's research excellence. The VCR has the overall leadership, through vision and shared governance, of the research enterprise at Berkeley. The VCR provides line management and operational oversight for the Research Division encompassing more than 3,000 staff and affiliates (approximately 2,600 in the Research Units, Museums and Field Stations, and 460 in research administration, compliance and campus support units).

Scope of Oversight

The VCR holds direct management responsibilities for:

• Organized Research Units (ORUs) : The Associate Vice Chancellor for Research (AVCR) portfolio includes more than 25 multidisciplinary research units—which encompass many more nested research centers and institutes as well as research museums and field stations.
• Museums & Field Stations : Eight research museums and science centers, alongside seven remote research field stations.
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship : The Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer (CIEO) portfolio, which includes Intellectual Property & Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA), entrepreneurship programs, and startup incubators.
• Research Administration & Compliance Offices : Overseeing the Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) in managing research contracts and grants, animal/human subject protections, research security (including export control), and conflicts of interest, and eight research compliance committees.
• Research Support Units : Research Integrity (with the AVCR); Environmental Health & Safety (with the Vice Chancellor for Administration); the Office of Laboratory Animal Care; Research Information Technology, and the Visiting Scholar and Postdoc Affairs Office.
• Research Development : Berkeley Research Development Office (including limited submission opportunities); stewardship of philanthropic and internally funded research programs.

Key Opportunities and Challenges

The role is multifaceted as an inspiring intellectual leader who champions diverse research activities, facilitates cross-disciplinary innovation, and acts as an operational change agent capable of effecting positive, significant change in infrastructure and organizational structures.

Funding Diversification & External Advocacy

• Navigating Federal Volatility: Understanding, communicating, and leading the navigation of shifting federal agency priorities, grant disruptions, and heightened regulatory mandates (research security, export controls).
• Alternative Funding Streams: The next VCR may proactively build and leverage relationships to diversify funding streams, maintaining connections with federal agencies while pursuing opportunities from industry partnerships, private philanthropy, and foundations.
• Facilitating Broad Collaborations: Capitalize on California state funding, cross-UC collaborations, or interdisciplinary initiatives on campus in high-impact areas.

Change Leadership on Infrastructure & Organizational Structures for Research Administration

• Change Management for Research Administration: Collaborate with campus leaders and administration to reduce administrative burden and overall RA process complications for faculty and researchers. Address and communicate effective process and systems improvements.
• Strategy for Shared Facilities: Evaluate and build sustainable financial models to operate, upgrade, and recapitalize shared core facilities and specialized units.
• Future-Proofing Buildings & Spaces: Collaboratively address deferred facilities maintenance and space constraints that hinder research growth.
• Systems & Technology Solutions: Partner with the Finance and IT leadership to modernize aging enterprise systems and safely integrate emerging AI tools where appropriate and relevant.

Intellectual Leadership, Research Vision, & Values-Based Leadership

• Champion the Research Enterprise: Ensuring humanities, social sciences, and STEM all receive strategic support.
• Balanced Leadership: Catalyze large-scale interdisciplinary initiatives without creating additional administrative silos. Advance innovation and entrepreneurship while supporting fundamental research.
• Decisive and Principled Approach: Exercise a principled and ethical compass, bring an aspirational vision for research support and strategy at Berkeley, and maintain the willingness and consistency to make and communicate complex/difficult decisions based on aligned values and vision.
• Diverse Stakeholders Communication: Communicate with clarity, empathy, and composure during crises, regulatory disruptions, and moments of institutional uncertainty.
• The Forest and The Trees: Balance high-level strategic vision with a realistic, grounded understanding of day-to-day administrative operations.
• Connecting with Institutional Equity: Preserve and communicate Berkeley's research success in service of its public mission, societal impact, and commitment to institutional equity.
• Faculty Partner & Liaison: Listen and leverage connections, and resolve and/or elevate issues of concern among the faculty to campus leadership; serve as an advocate for faculty and researchers. Convey direction, alignment, and relevant issues and trends of concern to faculty relating to research.

Navigating UC Berkeley and Managing Complexity

• Shared Governance & Decentralization: Understand and effectively navigate Berkeley’s decentralized ecosystem, being part of a state system, and shared governance model, relying on coalition-building and influence for success.
• Unionization: Navigate labor dynamics effectively, adapting to student, and postdoc unionization that has transformed mentor-mentee dynamics into formal employment frameworks. Navigate unionization of research support staff.
• Visionary Management & Delegation: Provide calm and motivational leadership to a large and complex division while maintaining a culture of service orientation. Delegate operational tasks effectively to a trusted senior team to manage a massive portfolio encompassing ~2,300 personnel and multi-layered compliance duties.
• Organized Research Units: Provide clear oversight of Organized Research Units (ORUs), focusing on strategic alignment, cross-disciplinary growth, and sustainable financial models.

The challenges/opportunities and priorities for the VCR are multi-directional, and the research ecosystem and federal landscape are ever-changing. The next VCR will need to be strongly grounded in their vision for the research enterprise at Berkeley and core values so that they may strategically lead their team, collaborate, influence, and drive change in support of researchers.

Qualifications and Characteristics

The ideal candidate will be a distinguished scholar and researcher with strong skills in leadership, administration, collaboration, and communication who can bring and advance a vision for research at UC Berkeley that aligns with the mission and culture of Berkeley, its executive leadership, and the campus community.

More Information

The university’s internal executive search partner, the Berkeley Executive Search team is supporting the search. For the full leadership profile, please go: