For Australian clients the largest sponsor by number of proposals and research volume is the Australian Research Council (ARC). To apply to the ARC, proposal information must be entered directly into the ARC RMS. There are no electronic system to system (S2S) capabilities available at this time.
At face value, the absence of support for S2S provides somewhat of a disconnect between the ARC system and the Proposal Tracking (PT) module in operation at an institution. During the application round, there is no ability to track applications and offer support to researchers and at the time of round closure, data has to be manually entered into the system and the likelihood of data entry errors is high.
At the end of 2012, half of the Australian client base now has a PT upload capability for importing ARC data directly into the InfoEd PT module. The process varies for each institution because the import processes go well beyond basic PT record creation and each uses the PT module slightly differently. What the process has facilitated for each institution is tailoring of the import to support internal business processes and provide enhanced support to applicant researchers.
On a daily basis while the application round is open, data entered into the ARC RMS is available for import into the InfoEd PT module. New PT records are created, or where a PT record already exists (from an update of a previous day), the record is updated.
Batch communications are defined such that for each new PT record created a communication is automatically sent to the PI/CI offering them support to complete their application as well as providing other institution specific Research Office guidelines and information.
Internal approvals can also be processed with an electronic record maintained within PT for future reference.
For more information regarding this PT data import process or how InfoEd may be able to further support your Research Office, please contact Damian Davini – Regional Manager Asia Pacific ddavini@infoedglobal.com