Electronic Research Administration

Need to be addressed:
Improve the process of research proposal development, review, approval, submission and administration.

Description:
As research activity continues to grow rapidly at UC Davis, we need to consider an information technology-based approach to assist the faculty and staff in the preparation and administration of research proposals. Such a system must be able to support the faculty in both the pre- and post-award phases of research contracts/grants; seamlessly link to necessary protocols, federal and state regulations; and support electronic submission procedures. This system must also integrate into the UC Davis middleware infrastructure and seamlessly interface with other local information systems such as DaFIS, the financial information system.

The preparation of a research proposal includes the assembly of all of the information that is needed to fulfill the submission requirements (e.g., description of the proposed research, budget, human subject protocols, approvals, etc). This also includes specific campus information that is held locally and may not accompany the actual submission. Funding agencies tend to have unique submission requirements (whether electronic or not) that an electronic grants management system must "know" and accommodate.

We would also expect such a system to be able to assemble routine information required by the agency from campus information sources. Such a system would need to provide convenient and flexible input and output for both faculty and staff as well as the ability to selectively control access to the information contained in the proposal as it goes through campus approval processes.

Notes/Status:
An oversight committee was appointed (Meyer and Bruno, co-chairs) as well as an implementation workgroup (Chronister and Hartline, co-chairs). The project was discussed with campus computing advisory groups in 2003-04 (see deliberations and report at http://ccfit.ucdavis.edu). A proposal has been submitted for a phased, three-year implementation beginning in October, 2004.

IT Strategies:
I.1; I.2; II.2; IV.1; IV.2 [see the IT Strategic Plan (PDF) for categories]

Sponsor:
Office of Research