New research tool to be implemented

President Michael McRobbie announced earlier this week that IU will begin putting into action a new comprehensive grant system to help faculty researchers during the grant making process. 

Kuali Coeus, the new research administration system, manages the complexities of research administration and fully addresses the needs from the faculty researcher through grants administration to federal funding agencies, according to the Kuali Coeus website. 

“This is part of a new initiative that President McRobbie has been encouraging for a long time,” IU Spokesman Larry MacIntyre said. “In today’s research world, there are many administrative requirements to receive a research grant, for keeping track of how the money is spent, making sure all of the rules are complied with; and this new program sort of ramps up all of those needs into one comprehensive program.”

The tool will aid faculty in all aspects of the grant proposal process including development, submission, award and compliance right from their computers. 

“The software that we’ve been using to help a researcher submit a proposal is software that does not communicate well with other softwares,” said Faith Hawkins, chief of staff to vice president of research Jorge Jose. “Kuali Coeus is software that doesn’t cost us anything, and we can make it meet the precise needs and structures of IU.”

Kuali Coeus is scheduled to be implemented at IU in two phases during the next two years.

The first phase will be in place by July 2011 and will allow faculty users to create simple or complex grant proposals and to submit proposals for Grants.gov and other entities. The second phase will be in place by December 2012 and will allow faculty to manage multi-account awards.

“Anytime you put up new software, there’s going to be a bumpy period, but once we get over that it will be a much smoother, easier system for our researchers to use,” Hawkins said.

MacIntyre said McRobbie thinks the new program will make it easier for the faculty to focus on the grants they’re applying for rather than the administrative process.

“The president hopes that this will result in more grant applications and more winning grants,” MacIntyre said.