Managing UVa’s sponsored programs portfolio requires use of the latest technology

The research enterprise at UVA is growing in volume and complexity and includes more than $1B in proposal activity and $395M in awards annually. A strong and vibrant research mission at UVA attracts talented faculty, students, and staff; spurs economic development at local, state and national levels; and strengthens our position as flagship academic institution. (Read more about the University's commitment to research in its strategic plan, The Cornerstone Plan.)

Prior to 2016, we were managing a $1B proposal portfolio on paper

Prior to ResearchUVA, the University had no enterprise-level system to support sponsored research proposal review and submission. Using paper and PDFs to manage $1B in proposal activity, without a reliable and efficient way to track and report on our activities, was no longer an option. The lack of a modern and responsive research administration system was costing the University in the form of significant inefficiencies, administrative burden, investigator frustration, and compliance risk. We had almost no quantitative insight into our research mission.

ResearchUVA started as a project to scan and organize our documents

In 2015, the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) and ITS Custom Applications and Consulting Services (CACS) began a project to digitally scan and electronically organize in ResearchUVA institutional sponsored research documents housed in numbers of filing cabinets in OSP offices in Carruthers Hall. This alone transformed the research community’s ability to perform the business of research (and we also freed up space equivalent to the size of a small apartment). Since that time, the scope of ResearchUVA has continued to evolve, as University leaders recognized the system’s potential to bring large-scale productivity and transparency--as well as data analytics--to the research enterprise.

We've become a strategic initiative creating efficiency and intelligence in UVA's research enterprise

ResearchUVA is at the center of UVA’s strategic goals relating to research: the system will help the University be more competitive, more compliant and more intelligent about the research enterprise. The system is being developed in-house, for and with the research community, using an agile software development approach to ensure a user-friendly, flexible and cost-effective solution that can continue to evolve over time. Users include faculty, research and financial administrators, and senior administrative leaders (institutionally and within schools), representing a broad range of roles within the research enterprise. In September 2016, ResearchUVA received $2.9 million from UVA’s Strategic Investment Fund to advance the project. Read about what we're currently working on and what we've achieved so far.