FAQ

UC San Diego's current research administration system was developed decades ago (Coeus) and no longer supported. Coeus struggled to keep up with the growing needs of the university’s complex research enterprise and technical infrastructure.

In order for staff to achieve increased efficiencies, streamlined business processes and effective reporting and to meet regulatory requirements, UC San Diego decided to implement the Kuali Research (KR) sponsored programs modules for pre- and post- award.

More time

You will be able to spend less time making the systems work and more time letting the systems work for you. That gives you more time to try new ways of doing things and focus on improvements!

Improved functionality via system-to-system (S2S)

Most pre-Kuali proposal submission challenges stemmed from the inability of our current system to submit directly to federal sponsors, meaning working from multiple systems and a gap between proposal submission and recording. This could lead to delays and inconsistencies in reporting.

Kuali Research includes system-to-system functionality, which will allow users to prepare, submit, and track proposals within the system. 

Consistent budgeting functionality

Before Kuali, proposal budgets were created in a variety of ways, from Excel sheets to in-house tools, leading to inconsistent application of institutional rates and miscalculations. With Kuali Research’s detailed budgeting functionality, users can now create, review and edit budgets directly in the system.

Information like institutional rates and values are pre-loaded into the system so users can select, add, or edit values as needed. This creates a more consistent practice for budget preparation and will provide better reporting opportunities. The result is consistent budget preparation for all of UC San Diego.

Comprehensive sponsored project lifecycle tracking

Kuali Research includes proposal development, institutional proposal, negotiations, award, and subaward modules. This means increased transparency for all users on the lifecycle of a research agreement from proposal to award. 

Over 40 staff members participated in the request for proposal (RFP) to select Kuali Research as our vendor. More than 70 subject matter experts (SMEs) participated in various business process reviews.

The project team is committed to providing the UC San Diego research administration community with the resources needed to successfully interact with Kuali Research. Efforts were made to ensure organizations and departments across UC San Diego were familiar with and preparing for changes to business processes.

As the project progressed, SMEs who had participated in business process reviews and those selected for user-acceptance testing (UAT) received targeted training on preparing research agreements using Kuali Research.

Before launch, a robust end-user training plan was offered to staff.  The plan included a blend of instruction and tools to make users comfortable with the new Kuali Research system. Instructor-led courses, web-based courses, printable job aids, training expos and open lab sessions were offered. 

Staff training was slated for September - October 2019.

Those serving as department SMEs and campus stakeholders were requested to perform testing as were others in specific job functions closely related to critical system components.