Increasing Efficiency of UMaine Research Infrastructure

by Stefania Irene Marthakis

The Office of Research Administration (ORA) at the University of Maine (UMaine) recently launched a new grant management system called Kuali Research. Kuali Research is an electronic Research Administration (eRA) system for proposal submission, research compliance, and grants management. It streamlines proposal submission and award administration and provides a central, online repository of proposal, award, and other information. ORA’s previous grant tracking system was an antiquated Microsoft ACCESS database, which was not accessible to the greater campus community. Different classes of people such as faculty, researchers, and administrators can access Kuali anywhere they have a web browser and internet connection. Together with the Advanced Research Computing, Security, and Information Management (ARCSIM) team, which is providing technical support for the implementation of Kuali, this new initiative is helping to modernize the research administration process. 

ARCSIM is best known for supporting the advancement of research computing, but since the team’s inception in 2019, information management has also been a key focus. ARCSIM supports internal groups like ORA with the management of research data and the associated processes and software solutions surrounding those activities, such as enabling the annual HERD survey, internal reporting, grant processing, and many other activities. 

Kevin Wentworth (Assistant Director of ARCSIM), who is serving as internal product manager for the Kuali implementation, provided this background information: “ORA’s current database has been around for over 20 years. In that time, the system was highly customized to the ever-changing needs of the organization and the larger grants and contracts landscape. The ongoing maintenance of a custom-built solution, along with the institutional knowledge required to use and maintain this system, is an increasingly huge burden that lies solely on internal resources.” 

Since 2018, the level of grant processing has dramatically increased: 12% increase in the number of proposals submitted, 117% increase in the dollar value of those proposals, 24% increase in the number of awards received, and 146% increase in the dollar value of those awards. As a vendor-based partner solution, Kuali will help update and maintain the system as well as provide support for troubleshooting and consultation.

The main innovation of this project deals with transforming how researchers will interact with this new, self-service eRA system. With Kuali, researchers will have the ability to check on the status of their proposal and view documents of record (e.g., proposal, budgets, award and other related documents). ORA and ARCSIM have also been working with the University of Maine Systems Accounting to modernize how they’re creating projects and how data flows from Kuali to the General Ledger (GL), which will greatly reduce the frequency of errors as the potential of automation increases. Further, Kuali will connect UMaine and the University of Southern Maine (USM) by using the same platform, which will enhance inter-campus collaborations. Kuali personnel are in a position to serve the entire University of Maine System through this deployment model.

Christopher Boynton (UMaine Director of ORA) sees the benefit of a web-based system as he laid out the different phases of this project:

• Phase 1: Internal Kuali use by ORA staff only (summer 2023); ORA staff will utilize this time to continue to learn how to use Kuali, understand its features, and develop and revise internal processes and procedures. During this phase, the Proposal Approval Routing System (PARS) will continue to be the approval mechanism for proposal submission.
• Phase 2: Introduction of Kuali to the wider research community (fall 2023); ORA will formally launch Kuali and will provide training sessions for all users and approvers.

“In the near future, faculty and researchers will be able to track and upload their deliverables and reports in Kuali, which means they will be less likely to miss a report or deliverable,” Boynton stated. “Also, ORA can record key award specific terms and conditions, which may help faculty better prepare if they have a large multi-agency research portfolio.” Future phases will include implementation of a new budget module that will allow users to build their budgets directly in the Kuali environment and provide post-award access and functionality for researchers and administrators. 

ARCSIM is also working on a Kuali FAQ database for faculty and researchers to support the fall launch. “It’s an exciting project,” Wentworth added, “that brings together the University of Maine, University of Southern Maine, and Systems Accounting aiming to deliver a modern, robust solution for faculty, researchers, and research administration.”