Thursday, October 13, 2016

ResearchUVA: New Features on the Horizon


When the Board of Visitors convened this September to choose the initial group of projects for funding by the Strategic Investment Fund, they selected initiatives that had the most potential to significantly transform a critical area or knowledge or function and to enhance the academic, research or clinical standing of UVA.  Among the 13 chosen projects is ResearchUVA, a software platform currently being developed by the Office of Sponsored Programs to manage the research administration process.

Since its launch in May of 2015, ResearchUVA has been in continuous development as an institutional resource for reducing administrative burden associated with pursuing and conducting research. The overarching goal over the last year has been to replace manual, siloed and paper-intensive processes with a one-stop electronic portal providing investigators and administrators around-the-clock access to the range of information they need to manage sponsored programs, from any device —from account balance information to award documentation to agreement status information. 

Already, researchers have benefitted from ResearchUVA’s functionality.  All research documents are housed electronically within the system, and faculty can easily track the progress of their documents within the process queue, as well as search the system for opportunities to collaborate.  Additionally, proposals can be submitted electronically.

SIF Funding will enable ResearchUVA to make major advances in supporting the research mission at UVA. 

Coming in FY 2017: 
·        Availability of reporting on the number and dollar value of proposals submitted per month and per year at UVA
·        Enhanced reporting on proposals representing collaborative and interdisciplinary research
·        Capability to track non-funded or zero-dollar value agreements critical to research programs such as: materials transfer agreements (MTAs), non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), data use agreements (DUAs), and memoranda of understanding (MOUs)
·        Enhanced keyword search capability across documents within the system
·        Rollout of data visualization and user/community engagement platforms

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