Future-proof funding of research programmes with a grant management system

We know that research, whether medical, technological, or in any of the multitude of areas that a grant management system can support, is continually at risk from many challenges. If you’re reading this article, you are almost certainly aware of these challenges better than us! However know that fluctuations in funding availability due to economic factors, shifting political priorities, or global issues are a primary concern. The speed with which research now often has to meet a crisis continues to increase, and this alongside rapid advancements in technology (such as AI) can present ethical dilemmas and regulatory challenges for funders. In addition, increasing reliance on digital technologies and data driven research approaches means that ensuring the privacy of sensitive data is critical to protect against data breaches and privacy violation. We also see that addressing complex research challenges often requires collaboration amongst researchers, institutions and countries. We know that coordinating international research efforts and navigating diverse regulatory environments can be difficult.

How can a grant management system help with a funding a research programme?

A grant management system like AIMS can play a crucial role in future-proofing your funding of research programme in several ways.

It seems obvious, but the impact of streamlined administration is not to be underestimated. By automating administrative tasks such as application management, review processes, and reporting, a grant management system frees up your time to focus on funding raising for actual research activities.

Advanced grant management systems facilitate seamless integration with other research tools and databases, allowing researchers to access and analyse diverse datasets more effectively. This data management and integration capability can be essential for staying abreast of emerging trends, technologies, and discoveries in the field.

A grant management system can facilitate collaboration among funders, researchers, institutions, and stakeholders globally. Features like document sharing, communication tools, and collaborative workspaces such as the new chat feature within AIMS can support peer review, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, enabling reviewers and researchers to leverage diverse expertise and resources to address complex challenges.

Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and ethical standards is paramount in research across the world. A robust grant management system can automate compliance checks, track regulatory changes, and provide guidance on ethical considerations, helping funders, reviewers and researchers navigate complex regulatory landscapes and maintain research integrity.

Real-time monitoring and reporting functionalities allow funders and researchers to track the progress of their funded projects in real-time, identify potential bottlenecks or issues early on, and make data-driven decisions to adapt their strategies accordingly. This agility is essential for responding to emerging research priorities and opportunities.

We know that research is inherently dynamic, with new technologies, methodologies, and paradigms constantly emerging. A flexible and adaptable grant management system can accommodate changing research needs and priorities, enabling researchers to pivot quickly in response to emerging grant challenges or other research opportunities.

A grant management system can serve as a repository of institutional knowledge, capturing lessons learned, best practices, and research outcomes for future reference. This knowledge management and learning capability ensures continuity and sustainability in research efforts, even as personnel change and priorities evolve over time.

AIMS’s future predictions for grant management systems and research funders

We increasingly see trends in funders’ requirements for their grant management systems. This, combined with our decades of experience in the sector, allows us to build a wish list – or perhaps a list of predictions – for how your grant management system can help you better fund research in your area.

We would like to see research funding linked to data release so that other scientists can benefit from lab successes and failures.

We can support a central repository of grant applications. This can help funders avoid duplication by using mining software to crawl over natural language and compare potential or existing applications to what already exists and what is in the pipeline.

A good grant management system will allow you to tailor grant management processes to match any peer review structure, with multiple committees, scoring criteria, and/or weighting.

Integration with other data sources and tools for identifying peer reviewers, can allow funders to identify and invite peer reviewers from a more global base.

By implementing a robust reporting and monitoring system via your grant management system, funders can track the impact of grant funded research over extended periods – giving a hawk’s eye view of your work and where the wins and losses might be in future.

We know that peer reviewed grantmaking can be, by its nature, conservative. By building in and automating quality controls via a grant management system like AIMS, you can identify, track and challenge your own biases when thinking about how to fund blue sky initiatives.

Grant management systems, like AIMS, can offer researchers a comprehensive solution to streamline administrative tasks, enhance collaboration, ensure compliance, and optimise resource allocation. By leveraging the capabilities of these systems, research organisations can significantly boost productivity, accelerate scientific discovery, and maximise the impact of their research efforts. With automated processes, real-time monitoring, and robust security features, grant management systems empower researchers to focus on what they do best – advancing knowledge and solving the world’s most pressing challenges.