Aims Grant Management Software

02 May 2009

Quest’s AIMS Solution has been selected by the UK’s Department of Health to manage grants and funding awarded to Third Sector Organisations. The Third Sector Partnership Team is responsible for managing the Department of Health’s relations with the ‘Third Sector’ and in particular the award of grants to the Third Sector. The scheme supports local projects that enable Third Sector organisations to involve volunteers in health and social care activity.

The Implementation of AIMS has already begun to manage this funding. Applications for much of these funds, which are substantially oversubscribed, are made online. Award recommendations are made by relevant units within DH depending on the nature of the activities for which funds have been requested, although the final decision for Section 64 grants rests with the Secretary of State. Grants may be made for periods of up to three years, and during this time, the recipients’ expenditure and progress on the project must be monitored to ensure successful delivery.

Substantially more than £20M per year is awarded by DH to Third Sector organisations.

 20 March 2009

THE CLIENT

The Netherlands Fund for Performing Arts+ (Nederlands Fonds voor Podiumkunsten - NFPK+) brings together all the performing arts disciplines into a single organisation that considers the entire chain, from creating and producing to programming and audience-building.

The Dutch Funding Organisation makes awards to professional arts organizations and individuals using a peer assessment process. The Netherlands is home to many companies, ensembles, orchestras and creators respected around the world. There is a well-equipped and well-distributed network of venues to exhibit the entire range of disciplines. NFPK works to retain and enhance what is already good and to help streamline those areas that require improvement.

This naturally presupposes the existence of a wellfunctioning funding structure.

GRANT  MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

NFPK decided to implement Quest’s AIMS Grant Management Solution to provide more efficient and effective ways to deliver services to grant applicants.

The AIMS System will be used to gather information from artists and organisations which is fed into the AIMS database where all information on each client is centrally stored and easily retrieved. Each Grant Application will follow an electronic "workflow" to ensure all applications are processed and assessed fairly and in the same way.

The new Grant Management solution will provide NFPK staff with “information at their fingertips”, and will as a result, offer more efficient communication with artists and organisations.

NFPK+ will use the new software to ensure closer contact with the sector and improve transparency, accessibility, visibility and administrative procedures. In doing so, it will seek to strike the right balance between continuity and a satisfactory degree of flexibility.

05 February 2009

THE CLIENT

The FNR sees itself as one of the main drivers of high quality research in Luxembourg. In order to fulfil this role, it aims to steer public research through its research programmes and tackle structural issues through its various other instruments.

For the FNR, the chief role of public sector research is to provide valuable knowledge and guidance in relation to the aspects that are important for Luxembourg’s economy, society and its environment. The objective of the FNR is thus threefold: to invest in human resources, in institutions and in knowledge.

CONTRACT AWARD

The objective of the present contract award is for the supply and implementation of an integrated, high performance, operational and user-friendly Information System, including software licenses, for the Management of Funding Programmes at the Luxembourg “Fonds National de la Recherche”(FNR).

The need to develop an efficient and integrated Grant Management System (GMS) with an online application service stems from the fact that there are increasing volumes of funding programmes and projects to be managed in the future at the FNR, due in particular to a reform of the national PhD and Postdoc Grant scheme (AFR) which will enter into force by law in 2008 and which will entrust the FNR with the management of the PhD and postdoc.

GRANT  MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

In January 2009, FNR decided to implement Quest's Grant Management Software – AIMS. The system was found to meet all of FNR's “On-line Grants Service” and "back office" requirements as well as offering the flexibility to allow new schemes to be added or existing schemes to be modified without the need for expensive re-programming.

Main expectations of the FNR towards the new IT System concern a complete operational service for typical online grant management, on the basis of predefined processes, including budget management and overall reporting and statistics.

AIMS was developed with “Communities of Practice” (COPS) in mind. The system therefore gives a common working forum to everyone involved in the granting process, which in the case of FNR included Researchers, External Reviewers, Principle Investigators, Administrators, Scientific Research Organisations, etc. The software will enable FNR to operate an inclusive working environment bringing the Research Community together in an integrated on-line community.

The future GMS will cover the three major funding activities at the FNR:

• The AFR research-training grants for PhD and postdoc
• The multi-annual research programmes
• The research accompanying measures