Job Posting: Director of Research

The Director of Research is expected to be a leader in the area of family medicine and primary care research. She or he will report directly to the Chair of the Department of Family Medicine (DFM) and will sit on the Executive Committee of the Department of Family Medicine. The time commitment is 1 day/week (0.2 FTE). This is a three-year term that is renewable.

Vision

To maintain and further develop the research capacity and programs of the Department of Family Medicine at McGill to establish it as one of the top family medicine and primary care research sites in the world.

This will be achieved by:

•  integrating research and clinical contexts for the optimization of academic family medicine;
•  promoting our research training programs (clinical scholars’ program, MSc, PhD);
•  enhancing the profiles of our research in Family Medicine and of the research groups and teams in the department;
•  further developing training materials and programs to support the scholar role for residents and clinician teachers;
•  clarifying the optimal career paths and mechanisms needed to increase the development of clinician scientists;
•  building capacity, partnerships, and strong international research networks.

These goals will be achieved in conjunction with the Graduate Studies Division, by ensuring our research faculty are optimizing their career trajectories in terms of success in funding competitions, recognized awards and prizes, and timely career promotion. The research output of the Department and its affiliated members will be operationalized into practice through knowledge translation and exchange, to transform research findings into policy, decision-making, clinical practice and frontline care.

Summary of Responsibilities

The Director of Research will oversee the general functioning and direction of research in the Department, working in close partnership with the Chair, the administration, and other departmental leaders, to ensure that the Department of Family Medicine at McGill continues to lead primary care research nationally and is recognized internally and externally. This person will develop close contacts with the research directors and scholarly activity directors in each of our GMF-Us, therefore she or he must be functionally bilingual and willing to travel to Châteauguay, Gatineau, Montreal and Val d’Or.
The specific tasks of the Director of Research include:

1) Promotion of the research agenda of the department:

•  Oversees the annual research activities of the department and submits an annual research and academic report to the DFM.
•  Links research with graduate programs, quality improvement programs, medical training programs, and clinical activities.
•  Operationalizes greater collaboration between the DFM and GMF-Us related to research and scholarly activity, eg. by assigning and helping integrate research faculty to an affiliated GMF-U.
•  Identifies grant and funding opportunities, and maintains familiarity with regulations and policies affecting researchers and associated staff, and communicates them effectively and efficiently.
•  Fosters collaborations between clinician-researchers and researchers internally, with other departments at McGill, and with other research institutes, locally, provincially, and nationally.
• Promotes knowledge transfer.
• Serves as an advocate for family medicine and primary care research.

2) Administration:

•  Chairs the Research Committee (possibly combined with the Program’s Graduate Committee).
•  Collaborates with the different programs associated with research (Global Health, PBRN, MSc, PhD, post-doctoral fellows, Indigenous Health, etc.).
•  Communicates with different levels of government, non-governmental agencies and industry.
•  Engages with faculty and trainees to identify potential research priorities and foster the emergence of research themes for the department that align with the Departmental, Faculty and University Strategic Plans.
• Represents the department at national research meetings (eg. FMF, CCME).
• Contributes, in close collaboration with the graduate program directors, to the planning of the graduate research day and departmental research seminars, and attends these events.

3) Program Development:

•  Builds links with UGME (such as developing a summer research course for medical students, a list of summer research opportunities, research trainee exchanges, UGME research training).
•  Continues links with PGME (such as maintaining the resident scholarly activity modules, supporting the Tannenbaum fellows, participating in the Tannenbaum Research Day, collaborating with the Director of the Clinician Scholars’ Program).
•  Fosters links with faculty development (such as supporting clinicians in their scholarly activities, developing an introductory online course for clinicians interested in increasing their research capabilities).
•  Ensures that the proper services (such as PBRN) are available to researchers and clinician teachers, and that there is a clear mandate for and process for accessing these services.
•  Augments connections with the QI program, eg. promotes the secure sharing of clinical data (clinical data research platform) that could serve for QI, residents’ scholarly activities, and research.
• Participates in accreditation processes (university or external reviews).

4) Mentorship:

•  Participates in academic performance evaluation of research Contract Academic Staff.
•  Provides guidance for the department’s academics to function as a research team.
•  Sits on promotion and hiring committees for academic faculty for the department.
• Arranges participation by a departmental member in external research related activities/initiatives such as advisory bodies and professional associations.
•  Promotes networking between clinicians, clinicians-researchers and researchers (for instance, mentor researchers who are embedded in GMF-U on how to better support clinicians who have research-related questions; develop a support group for clinician-researchers).

Interested individuals should send a CV and letter of interest to:

Rosa Coppola by email (acad-hr.fammed [at] mcgill.ca)
Application Deadline: Friday, March 13th, 2020

Interviews will be held in March for an expected start date of April 1st, 2020.


McGill University is committed to equity in employment and diversity. It welcomes applications from indigenous peoples, visible minorities, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, women, persons of minority sexual orientations and gender identities, and others who may contribute to further diversification.