WHAT DOES A RESEARCH COORDINATOR DO?
Published: Dec 17, 2025 - The Research Coordinator serves as the first point of contact for research intake, engaging directly with clients, conducting reference interviews, and ensuring a consistent and professional customer experience. This role involves monitoring the research queue, populating tickets with metadata, assigning requests based on team capacity and client needs, and following up to ensure timely completion. The coordinator also communicates regularly with clients and stakeholders, supports basic research tasks using commercial databases, and helps maintain internal documentation and workflows.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Research Coordinator
1. Research Coordinator Overview
- Participant Recruitment: Plan, implement, and monitor participant recruitment and retention procedures.
- Participant Screening: Screen and interview study participants.
- Protocol Compliance: Interpret and implement protocol procedures and policy.
- Documentation Management: Maintain case report forms, charts and documentation, and regulatory compliance and binders.
- Data Management: Collect and enter research data, and review lab and procedure results.
- Medication Management: Dispense medication and maintain records.
- Stakeholder Communication: Maintain open communication with the study sponsor, the Internal Review Board, and the Research Office.
- Site Coordination: Assist study monitors and sponsors with site visits.
- Financial Processing: Process research purchase orders and payment vouchers.
- Audit Support: Assist Audit Services with internal study audits and reports.
- Training Compliance: Maintain up-to-date sponsor training per specific study.
2. Research Coordinator Tasks
- Research Coordination: Coordinate and participate in all aspects of the research process for existing and upcoming clinical trials.
- Participant Recruitment: Recruit efforts such as advertising and screening potential participants.
- Clinical Collaboration: Interface and collaborate with existing clinical teams at the study site within a complex community addiction treatment setting.
- Enrollment Accountability: Accountable for participant enrollment.
- Participant Tracking: Track participants throughout the study.
- Data Collection: Be in charge of data collection.
- Data Management: Responsible for data entry, maintenance, and quality assurance.
- Data Analysis: Responsible for data analysis and interpretation.
- Knowledge Dissemination: Participate in teaching and dissemination.
- Team Supervision: Supervise research assistants.
3. Research Coordinator Job Summary
- Research Administration: Assist the Principal Researcher with the management and administration of research projects.
- Progress Tracking: Track progress toward short- and long-term goals of internal and external research initiatives.
- Project Planning: Plan research project launch meetings.
- Staffing Support: Support project staffing decisions.
- Team Operations: Execute internal processes for managing the research team.
- Knowledge Management: Develop and execute knowledge management strategies to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the research team.
- Grant Management: Manage the grant proposal submission process for the research team.
- Document Editing: Proofread, edit, and format research team documents.
- Administrative Support: Provide scheduling and administrative support to research team members.
4. Research Coordinator Details
- Assay Development: Design or optimize assays.
- Protocol Development: Create protocols or standard operating procedures for techniques such as DNA and protein isolation and cell culture procedures.
- Data Analysis: Use statistical analysis tools to analyze data and generate graphs and reports.
- Inventory Management: Order lab supplies and maintain inventory.
- Training Compliance: Track training for lab safety and small animal handling.
- Animal Care: Conduct periodic checks on lab animals maintained in the animal facility.
- Technical Training: Train pharmacy or graduate students in basic lab techniques.
- Equipment Oversight: Oversee equipment service inspections and perform regular inspections of sensitive equipment.
5. Research Coordinator Duties and Roles
- Participant Recruitment: Recruit participants and organize testing schedules.
- EEG Data Collection: Responsible for EEG data collection.
- Sleep Recording: Responsible for polysomnography sleep recording.
- Behavioral Data Collection: Accountable for behavioral data collection.
- Data Analysis: Be in charge of data analysis.
- Project Coordination: Work with other lab members on the organization of large projects.
- Scientific Communication: Contribute to scientific journal articles and conference presentations.
6. Research Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities
- Clinical Trial Coordination: Work in collaboration with the Principal Investigator (PI) to coordinate industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated clinical trials.
- Patient Engagement: Develop relationships with patients as partners in their care.
- Recruitment Planning: Collaborate with clinicians to plan and facilitate patient recruitment and retention.
- Stakeholder Communication: Coordinate communication with sponsors, partnering departments, vendors, and national agencies.
- Research Education: Educate patients and study staff on research and trial specifics.
- Regulatory Compliance: Manage clinical and administrative study operations to ensure compliance with all IRB, FDA, federal, state, and industry sponsor regulations.
- Timeline Management: Adhere to study schedules and timelines.
- Documentation Management: Maintain detailed documentation at the patient and study level.
7. Research Coordinator Functions
- Protocol Development: Design, develop, implement, and oversee research protocols in consultation with Investigators.
- Study Coordination: Accountable for the day-to-day coordination of research studies.
- Research Documentation: Prepare knowledge syntheses, ethics applications, grant applications, progress reports, and manuscripts.
- Statistical Analysis: Responsible for rudimentary statistical analysis of data.
- Team Training: Train and supervise students, junior research staff, and volunteers.
- Stakeholder Communication: Communicate with collaborators and community partners.
- Literature Review: Perform literature searches, summaries, and systematic reviews.
- Budget Monitoring: Monitor research fund expenditures.
8. National Research Coordinator Duties
- Policy Research Leadership: Work closely with Teach Plus staff and teacher leaders to support and, in some cases, co-lead the development of state research-driven policy projects.
- Research Design: Draw on a variety of research methods to help Teach Plus state teams design, implement, and produce state-focused research projects.
- Mixed Methods Research: Use surveys, focus groups, interviews, and secondary data analysis as research methods.
- National Reporting: Assist in research leading to a national report and related deliverables, such as state-focused briefs, conference presentations, and professional learning sessions.
- Collaborative Research: Conduct mixed-methods research in collaboration with Teach Plus teacher leaders or external partners.
- Research Training: Train and support Teach Plus teacher leaders in conducting their own research.
- Program Leadership: Co-lead the program by organizing monthly sessions, coordinating the work of Senior Research Fellows, and designing content and sessions for teacher leaders.
- Resource Management: Manage and update Teach Plus research resources, including an organization-wide research library and research-related software tools such as survey platforms.
- Project Management: Manage multiple national initiatives, projects, and studies.
9. Research Coordinator Responsibilities
- Research Intake: Serve as the first point of contact for research intake, including direct client interaction and communication, ensuring a smooth and consistent customer experience.
- Queue Monitoring: Actively monitor the research queue for all new incoming requests.
- Reference Interviewing: Conduct basic intake reference interviews under client-specific protocols.
- Ticket Management: Populate research tickets with appropriate metadata.
- Workflow Coordination: Assist in assigning tickets under the guidance of the Director of Research Services, considering request type, client relationships, team workflows, and client specifications.
- Task Tracking: Maintain steady attention to the status and progress of tickets in the queue and perform follow-up to ensure timely completion of research tasks.
- Client Communication: Regularly communicate with clients in a professional and courteous manner.
- Written Communication: Draft clear, concise, and professional written communications.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Engage and work closely with internal and external parties, up to the C-suite level, in a client-centered manner.
- Database Research: Fulfill entry-level requests by retrieving documents from commercial research databases or other web sources.
- Process Documentation: Assist with the development and maintenance of internal department materials, including process workflows and documentation.
10. Research Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities
- Communication Skills: Communicate clearly and openly.
- Relationship Building: Build relationships to promote a collaborative environment.
- Performance Accountability: Be accountable for performance.
- Patient Experience: Look for ways to improve the patient experience.
- Professional Development: Take initiative for professional growth.
- Team Leadership: Be in charge of and eager to build a winning team.