Industry specific software package

Tender description

Included: research management system, a suite of software-as-a-service products designed to meet a wide range of needs for university research management. The products of interest as described within the suite: pre-award, contracts and post-award. These modules together will provide King’s with a comprehensive research awards management system, supporting the entire research project lifecycle from bid development to post-award tracking and management. Not included: there are several functions that we do not expect the Worktribe modules to cover. The system is not expected to include research outputs management or act as an institutional repository. Similarly we are not planning to use these Worktribe modules to manage the university’s REF submission. Also, although the contract will include the development of an integration with the university finance system, we are not expecting use the Worktribe modules to act a financial management tool, nor to handle any aspect of invoicing. An end-to-end research lifecycle management consisting of the following: research pre-award, post-award and contracts products. King’s College London receives in the region of 190 000 000 GBP annually in external funding to carry out academic research projects. A very large proportion of this is won through competitive bids to funders, including UKRI, Wellcome, BHR, CRUK, and other charities, government bodies and industrial organisations. Bids are prepared by academic staff in the Faculties, with assistance from local administrative staff, and approved at departmental and/or Faculty level. The process of submitting applications to funders, the receipt of award funding, tracking of the award through its lifecycle and invoicing of expenditure against the award is then carried out mainly by nominated staff. The management overhead on staff across the university in application and awards management is very large, and the need for communication and collaboration within the university is critical. Furthermore, increasing numbers of bids are made with partner institutions, including both other universities and commercial organisations. In order to improve and streamline these processes as much as possible King’s has been exploring the market for Research Awards Management systems. These are systems that assist with “end-to-end” management of the awards process, from bid development through to project closure.