For research offices
AI for research offices, built by people who’ve run them.
ReThink Higher takes your institution from “should we use AI?” to “here’s how we use AI” — through courses that build fluency, consulting that turns fluency into policy and workflow, and tools that make the work lighter every day.
Led by a 20-year research-enterprise executive · Grounded in current NIH and NSF AI policy · Designed for sponsored programs, not adapted from corporate IT
AI 101 for Research Offices
Six short modules covering foundational concepts, practical applications and institutional guardrails.
Your team: 4 of 6 modules done
Research administration is at a breaking point.
Federally funded researchers already spend roughly 44% of their research time on administrative requirements. Now the funding environment is tightening, success rates are at historic lows, and every office is being asked to do more with less — while also being asked to “figure out AI.”
Most offices are stuck between two bad options: ignore AI and fall behind, or adopt it carelessly and risk a compliance problem with a federal sponsor. NIH has already said that applications “substantially developed by AI” will not be considered original. The line between helpful and harmful is real, and it moves.
ReThink Higher exists for the space in between.
Learn. Implement. Use.
Learn
Courses
Practical, role-specific courses that build real AI fluency across your research office. Start with AI 101 for Research Offices and go deeper with tracks on policy, proposal development, compliance, and leadership.
Explore courses →Implement
Consulting
We work alongside your leadership to assess readiness, write governance that will hold up, redesign the workflows that eat your team's time, and train the people who run them.
See consulting services →Use
Tools
Purpose-built AI tools for research offices: proposal review against funder criteria, collaborator and expertise discovery, funding matching, and a governance gateway that keeps every AI interaction inside your institution's policy.
See the tools →Courses build awareness. Consulting turns it into practice. Tools make it stick.
We’ve sat in your chair.
ReThink Higher was founded by a research-enterprise leader with more than two decades running sponsored research at institutions including Wake Forest, Georgia Southern, the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic, and Kennesaw State. We’ve built offices from the ground up, taken institutions through R2-to-R1 ambitions, and lived every compliance deadline on the calendar.
That matters because AI in research administration is not a technology problem. It’s a judgment problem: knowing which tasks AI can safely accelerate, which ones a federal sponsor will scrutinize, and how to write a policy your faculty will actually follow.
Policy-first.
Everything we teach and build is aligned to current NIH, NSF, and federal guidance on AI use — and updated when it changes.
Institution-shaped.
We understand that a research office at an emerging research institution and one at an R1 need different things. We don't sell one playbook.
Clean on IP and data.
Our tools are built on openly licensed data and leave ownership of your work with you.
Built for the people who keep research moving.
Vice Presidents and AVPs for Research
Need an AI strategy they can defend to a provost, a board, and a federal auditor.
Directors of Sponsored Programs
Need their teams faster on proposals without adding risk.
Research compliance, IRB, and COI staff
Need to know where AI helps and where it absolutely shouldn't go.
Research development professionals
Looking for better matching, better reviews, and better collaborator discovery.
Faculty and PIs
Want to use AI in proposal work without crossing the originality line.
“We’re building ReThink Higher with a small group of founding institutions. If you lead a research office and want to shape what we build, we’d like to talk.”
Become a founding partner →Get the AI-in-research-administration brief.
One email a month: what changed in federal AI policy, what’s working in offices like yours, and what we’re building next. No noise.
Ready to think higher?
Start with the course, book a conversation, or join the founding cohort.