Compliance Beyond the Public Sector: Challenges for Research, NGOs and International Development
When we think about compliance in grant management, most attention falls on public sector obligations like the AI Act, Data Act, Procurement Act, or NIS2. But for research councils, charities, and international development agencies, sector-specific compliance frameworks are just as critical — and sometimes more complex.
Research Sector
- Framework programme rules: Initiatives like Horizon Europe require cascade funding (FSTP) controls, eligibility checks, and multi-tier reporting.
- Open Science & FAIR data: Funders must ensure research outputs are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable — driving integrations with repositories and metadata capture.
- National funder policies: Bodies like UKRI, NWO and DFG mandate ORCID IDs, open access, and equality, diversity & inclusion (EDI) monitoring.
- Research integrity: Ethics approvals, conflicts of interest, and export-control checks must be built into workflows.
NGOs & Charities
- Fundraising compliance: In the UK, the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Practice sets governance expectations.
- Charity Commission/OSCR reporting: Fund accounting requires transparency between restricted and unrestricted funds.
- Safeguarding: Especially in youth, education, or humanitarian contexts, safeguarding checks and evidence logs are essential.
- Donor-imposed compliance: Major foundations often impose bespoke reporting and audit requirements.
International Development
- IATI reporting: Bilateral and multilateral donors increasingly require reporting to the International Aid Transparency Initiative standard.
- AML/CTF checks: Screening against sanctions lists and ensuring financial traceability are vital in fragile states.
- Safeguarding & protection policies: Agencies such as FCDO mandate strict safeguarding standards and evidence of compliance.
- Cross-border data protection: GDPR and Schrems II make hosting and transfer choices critical when handling beneficiary data.
Cross-Cutting Themes
Across these sectors, three compliance themes stand out:
- Data sovereignty and security — ensuring sensitive data is managed lawfully and transparently.
- Equity, diversity & inclusion (EDI) — increasingly central to reporting and accountability.
- ESG and social value — funders are being asked to evidence the broader impact of their grantmaking.
At AIMS, we design grant management systems that are configurable to these diverse compliance needs — from IATI reporting in international development, to EDI data capture in research, to safeguarding logs for charities. Future-proofing isn’t just about regulation; it’s about aligning with sector realities.
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Grant Management Software: A Practical Checklist for Organisations
Learn how grant management software can improve funding tracking, reduce admin, and ensure compliance with this practical checklist for organisations.
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One Platform, Many Programmes: Scaling Multi-Agency Grant Administration with a Single Grant Management System
How can multiple agencies collaborate effectively when managing shared funding programmes? This article explores how a multi-agency grant management platform can centralise applications, evaluations, reporting and oversight, enabling organisations to coordinate funding programmes more efficiently and transparently.
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Grants in a Corporate ERP Transformation: Five Architecture Considerations Before You Decide
ERP transformation programmes are reshaping corporate systems across finance, HR and operations. This article explores five key architectural considerations when integrating grant administration into an ERP-led environment, and how organisations can avoid embedding long-term complexity into their funding systems.
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What is grant management software?
Grant management software is used by grant makers and administrators to help manage grants, funding, accreditation, corporate giving, scholarships and other awards programmes.
Grant management software cuts down on administration time for grant makers, ensures transparency and accountability in grant giving, and allows funders to measure the impact of their grant giving by providing simple access to data.
If you are at the beginning of your journey to find the right software solution, you may feel that you don’t know the right questions to ask. Feel free to get in touch to find out what you should be asking a prospective grant management software supplier.
Let us help you get what you need.
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Whole-of-Government Grant Management: Three Shared Service Models That Work
Across government, grant management is under pressure from every direction: rising demand, tighter assurance requirements, higher expectations of transparency, and the practical challenge of running dozens (sometimes hundreds) of schemes across departments, agencies and arm’s-length bodies. A common theme sits underneath most of these challenges: fragmentation. The Problem: Why Public Sector Grant Management Is Fragmented The […]
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Compliance Across the Grant Management Landscape: Different Sectors, Different Challenges
Compliance in grant management isn’t one-size-fits-all. While public funders face statutory regulations like the AI Act, Data Act, or Procurement Act, other grantmakers — from medical charities to family foundations — operate under different governance, ethical, and regulatory pressures. Understanding these variations is key when selecting or configuring a grant management system (GMS). Education & […]
