What's in it for me?

The Research Management Program is a large-scale, complex change initiative and a staged implementation is planned over a three year period to ensure changes are introduced at a manageable pace. Systemic problems won’t be fixed overnight. It is expected that there will be increasing benefits for academic and administrative staff as the program delivery progresses.

As the University's central office for research administration and management, the Research Office will benefit significantly from the introduction of an enterprise system for managing research administration data, accompanied by streamlined, consistent processes that include automated workflow.

System features such as auto-fills and data validation alerts will reduce administrative effort and improve data quality, while checklists and status alerts will enable staff to be more proactive research administrators. Current problems with duplicate data entry should be eliminated. Greater data security, transparency through audit trails and more rigorous version control will make it easier to meet compliance obligations.

Less time spent on paper shuffling and manual processes will create more time for enhancing the quality of support for researchers. As the quantity of data in RIMS progressively increases, Research Office staff will have access to much more fine-grained information about researchers, creating an enhanced ability to match funding and collaboration opportunities to individual researchers or introduce more targeted support programs for particular groups such as Early Career Researchers (ECRs).

Establishing a single, central repository for research administration data that interfaces with other core University systems will create an information source that can be used for multiple purposes. Researchers will benefit as data on grants and publications is progressively cleansed and loaded into RIMS. At present, individual researchers are asked to provide the same information multiple times; in future, that information will be available directly from RIMS.

In making RIMS accessible to staff across the University and affiliated institutions, individual researchers will have the capacity to obtain research proposal clearances electronically from their Dean or Head of School, track the progress of grant applications through to award and project completion, and monitor publications submitted for HERDC. This will reduce time spent on manual follow-up, chasing signatures, etc and allow researchers to concentrate on their research, rather than administrative processes. It is the program’s longer-term goal to provide researchers with the ability to apply for grants through RIMS web-enabled user interface, eliminating the need to use other systems (e.g. GAMS).

Comprehensive and accurate data also provides the basis for transparent measurement of research performance to support recognition and reward for individual achievements. This is an essential element in fostering a culture of research excellence and enhancing the University’s ability to attract and retain high-performing academic staff.

The immediate benefit for academic and administrative staff involved in research management in the faculties and affiliated institutions will be the ability to view data and access reports in RIMS shortly after the first go-live date, scheduled for 1 September 2008. The first bulk data load will be information relating to all active grants and pending applications, offering the ability to quickly look up information about a particular grant to meet day-to-day operational needs, or to access reports across the data set.

As more data is loaded into RIMS (inactive grants / unsuccessful grant applications and later, publications) the value of the reporting capability available to the faculties will increase significantly. Comprehensive and accurate data accessible via a flexible reporting portal will enable transparent performance measurement at the unit or individual level, providing Deans and Associate Deans (Research) with a sound basis for strategic decision-making.

As more RIMS functionality is rolled out, administrative staff involved in research management in the faculties and affiliated institutions will be given greater access to RIMS to enable them to enter data (e.g. for HERDC).

The existence of a central, web-accessible data repository will remove the need for the Research Office and faculties to maintain multiple, stand-alone systems containing duplicate and inconsistent data. Streamlined, automated workflow will improve coordination and build better end-to-end processes, creating an environment where research administrators across the University are better connected.

For those business units closely associated with the Research Office such as Corporate Finance (Research), Ethics Office and Sydnovate the initial benefit will be the ability to independently and quickly view data about a particular grant in RIMS to meet day-to-day operational needs.

As more functionality is added to RIMS, there will be greater opportunities to coordinate the interdependent activities of the Research Office and these associated units. The Ethics Office in particular will derive benefits from Horizon 3, when the focus of configuration will be on ethics and biosafety clearance processes.