Overall, faculty are generally positive about their institution's technological support for research. Faculty generally reported having support for their research in terms of data management, use, and storage, as well as support from IT staff. Less than half of faculty reported having access to appropriate computational services for their research (45%) or support for federally funded IT and cyberinfrastructure resources (28%).

Our findings also suggest that some particular institution types could improve technology support for faculty research. Specifically, MA-level institutions' faculty rated IT research support significantly lower than did faculty from other institutions, especially DR institutions. This may reflect the nature of MA institutions, which might strike more of a balance between the research and teaching roles expected of MA faculty than of their research-focused DR institutional counterparts.

A majority of faculty who engage in data-intensive research at DR-level institutions were generally satisfied with the computing technologies available for their research. However, faculty still had concerns and suggestions about data stored in a cloud-based or virtual environment. For example, some faculty respondents suggested developing clearer security policies regarding cloud storage. Several respondents reported that their institution did not have a dedicated data repository system. Open-ended responses across all institution types also reflected a need for access to cloud storage and more effective infrastructure to conduct research. Many faculty also said they need easier options to back up data and procedures that make it easier to share data with student research assistants and colleagues.

In regard to IT staff, a little more than half of the faculty respondents reported that they receive timely, adequate, and appropriate support from IT to conduct research. Additionally, 44% of faculty reported that they have access to IT staff with discipline-specific knowledge about research and computing for their research needs. However, faculty who engage in data-intensive research are less satisfied with the computing support they are receiving, regardless of institution complexity or type. Themes identified in open-ended responses reflect faculty's suggestions on how their institution could more effectively address their computing needs. These suggestions include increasing the availability of software, live IT support, training/workshops, and cloud storage.

Faculty reported that they needed more intensive support from their IT staff in order to conduct research, including discipline-specific technology support, technical training or workshops for analytic software, and increased communication about available technological resources. In open-ended responses faculty identified additional needs to support their research. These included sustained access to analytic software, increased access to peer-reviewed journal databases, and access to hardware (e.g., dual monitors, laptops) to engage in research. Faculty also reported that IT security procedures (e.g., software updates) are a barrier to using analytic software on institutional hardware.

Although faculty are generally satisfied with the technology support they receive from their institutions to engage in research, our findings identify a gap between faculty research computing needs (not being met elsewhere at the institution) and the research-specific support capacity of institutional IT departments. The IT community has also identified this as a need, as evidenced by the growing interest in RC facilitators. RC facilitators may increase the research capacity of faculty who may not currently use HPC for their research or of humanities faculty who might benefit from adopting digital humanities methods for their research and scholarship. Faculty responses reflect a need for an RC facilitator role in their IT staffing, which also parallels the IT community's current strategy to address this need. Implementing RC facilitators to enhance faculty research capacity also reflects trends that characterize IT as an agent of institutional transformation and innovation. This intersection of shared need among higher education stakeholders should be a catalyst for continued adoption, development, and evaluation of the RC facilitator role.

The domain of faculty research computing needs is complex, fraught with a host of externalities related to discipline, grant funding, academic rank, and institutional type. Our limited understanding of what it takes to support research faculty and our lack of funding models that can establish services for all might also explain our findings that suggest that faculty correctly perceive a lack of resources prioritized to support their research. With the typical institution dedicating only 2% of the central IT budget to research computing services, even the most modest increases in research computing spending could have a significant impact on faculty experiences and research productivity.

• Increase funding for research computing services and technologies that support faculty research needs. Faculty demand for research computing services, support, and infrastructure will only continue to grow, although the typical IT organization spends very little (about 2%) of their annual resources to support research computing services. Even a modest increase of budget expenditures for research computing has the potential to transform the experience of faculty engaging in research that requires IT support.
• Build collaborative partnerships between academic departments, libraries, and IT to proactively meet faculty research needs. Institutional CIOs should work on building collaborative partnerships that include academic and IT departments, libraries, and deans and department chairs as well. These partnerships can serve to implement training and workshops for faculty, inform faculty of currently available technology and IT services for research, help faculty identify IT solutions to meet their research needs, and create responsive systems for filling these needs. Building the capacity of IT departments to provide discipline-specific technological support hinges on establishing effective networks of communication, reaching a mutual understanding of priorities and capacities, and collaboratively identifying areas for improvement in research support.
• Use RC facilitators to improve institutional capacities to proactively support and serve faculty engaged in all levels of research. Faculty engaged in data-intensive research tend to have the computational resources they need but are dissatisfied with the ability of IT staff to anticipate and meet their specific research computing needs. RC facilitators can 1) offer support for a range of faculty research needs, including faculty that conduct data-intensive research and those that need less intensive research support, and 2) cultivate partnerships with faculty grounded in a shared responsibility for the success of research projects, and facilitate inter- and intra-institutional connections.
• Increase access to analytic software. Institutions should investigate how to increase faculty's access to analytic software by the most cost-effective means possible while ensuring sustained access to these tools. This may include, for example, purchasing site licenses. It may also include the use of open-access software1  that offers robust and reliable analytic computing at minimal (or no) cost to users.
• Work with libraries to increase access to peer-reviewed journals, open-access journals, and other open educational resources and databases. This recommendation hinges on the ability of institutions to purchase and maintain access to databases. However, institutions can prioritize this access strategically by identifying databases or journals most relevant to disciplines via faculty surveys or by monitoring the use of particular databases across disciplines. Additionally, institutions can investigate participating in a state or regional consortium of colleges and university libraries to provide faculty and researchers with the information they need for teaching and research.