The Research Administration Improvement & Systems Enhancement (RAISE) project is a joint initiative of Division of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation (VPRI) and the office of the Chief Information Officer. RAISE was initiated to develop more effective and efficient business processes and on-line tools associated with research administration. It aims to improve risk management practices in the administration of research while reducing clerical administrative demands on faculty, academic administrators and staff.
The following RAISE initiatives are currently underway:
- My Research Funds - The redevelopment of the Funded Research Digest (FReD) and on-line research funding financial reports (My Research On Line) for Principal Investigators (PIs), business officers, and project managers as part of the My Research Funds project. For more information, please visit the project webpage.
- A calendaring function to send automated reminders of key research administration deliverables, including invoicing dates, financial and progress reports
To date, RAISE has enabled several important business process improvements including new robust tools for faculty members and business officers to increase transparency and monitoring capacity of research funds; reducing the risk of research deficits redirection of payroll postings away from closed/frozen restricted research funds; and automation of close-out activities for expired restricted research funds.
My Research Applications & Agreements (MRA), a web-enabled solution, has replaced the previous paper-based process for internal review and approval of research applications, leading to a broad range of benefits for the University, its research community and the environment. A major initiative, MRA established important groundwork on which other automated systems were built, including My Research Animal Protocols (MRAP) and My Research Human Protocols (MRHP) which enable the on-line development, submission, and review of animal and human research ethics protocols respectively.
Most recently, MRA was expanded to allow researchers to electronically submit requests for non-funded research agreements via the MRA web portal for institutional approvals and processing. Requests for the following agreement types are now submitted via the new non-funded agreements module within MRA.
- Material Transfer Agreement (MTA)
- Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA)
- Data Transfer Agreement (DTA)
- Research Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
- Research Equipment Loan Agreement
- Visiting Scientist IP Agreement
- Non-Funded Research Collaboration Agreement
The RAISE project team is committed to improving research administration for both faculty members and research administrators and will seek your invaluable input and insight as we develop the specifications for new initiatives. Should you have questions, comments or suggestions regarding project RAISE, or if you would like to participate, please contact us at raise@utoronto.ca. We look forward to working with you!
- Provide leadership and project oversight
- Consult and communicate with stakeholders/research community
- Develop functional requirements
- Work with programmers on development and testing
- Perform on-going system administration
- Provide user support and training
Staff
RAISE Help Desk
Staff
Renee Brost
Staff
Peter Schwarz-Lam
Staff
Nadia Saracoglu
