Funding, Grants & Awards | News

Case Western Reserve Tightens Research Administration with Help from Huron

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/09/12

Case Western Reserve University will be implementing a $2 million to $2.8 million pre-award grant system to manage the processes involved in research proposal generation and submission as well as award management. The Ohio institution chose Huron Consulting Group's Click Portal software.

Case Western manages about $420 million in external awards each year, driving the activities of about 2,600 full time faculty who conduct research in areas that include health, energy, biomedicine, and sustainability, among others.

The university expects to use the new system, which is browser-based, in four broad areas of grant management:

• Proposal creation and submission. The software provides a forms library and stays on top of form accuracy for electronic submissions to government funding organizations;
• Proposal tracking, which allows all grant participants to track, manage, and report on proposals in real time;
• Proposal budgeting, for collaborative online budgeting and reviews; and
• Award management, which automates award notification and budget reconciliation, facilitates management reporting, provides on-time award renewals, simplifies subcontractor monitoring, and works with existing accounting and HR systems.

The software can be hosted by Huron in an outsourcing scenario or as a managed service or run on-premises. Huron estimates that the typical deployment of the application from kick-off meetings to launch runs from three to four months for a "relatively simple implementation" to 12 to 18 months for a more complex scenario.

"Thousands of faculty and staff submit and renew more than 2,500 grant applications throughout the year," said Suzanne Rivera, associate vice president of research at the university. "With competition for funds increasing, we need a system that simplifies grant application processes for our researchers. We picked Huron's Click solution because it will help ensure accurate electronic submissions to funding sites such as grants.gov, enable timely processing of extensions and renewals, and also support non-federal research sponsors."

Click Portal software is also in use by the University of California, San Diego; the Ohio State University Medical Center; and the University of Calgary, among other institutions.