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The Vice Chair for Research can be a critical member of a radiology department’s leadership team and help guide its research program. There is, however, little information available on what a Vice Chair for Research is expected to do (i.e., a job description) or what types of challenges they are facing in today’s research environment. A survey of radiology Vice Chairs for Research was done to ascertain the characteristics and responsibilities of a typical radiology vice chair for research, and their commonly encountered challenges. The responsibilities were consolidated into 15 major categories with a variety of individual tasks in each one. There were 18 themes identified in terms of challenges, with the top three reported as funding to support research, engaging clinical faculty in collaborative research, and research time for radiologists. These survey results could help radiology departments define the role of their Vice Chair for Research or for those departments without one to formulate a job description for recruiting, and to consider ways to help Vice Chairs meet challenges in order to enhance department research efforts.