Research administration · Reference
What is research administration software?
Research administration software is the family of systems that universities and research organisations use to manage the business of research — from proposal preparation and grants management through compliance, to research information systems that record projects, outputs and impact.
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The categories of research administration software
Research administration software is not one product but several overlapping categories. Pre-award systems support proposal preparation, budgeting and submission to funders. Post-award systems handle award set-up, grants and financial management, and reporting against the terms of an award. Compliance systems cover ethics, conflict-of-interest, animal and human-subjects approvals, and other regulatory obligations. Research information management systems — CRIS — sit across the whole picture, recording projects, outputs, datasets and people. Collectively, the pre- and post-award tooling is often called electronic research administration, or eRA.
Large institutions frequently run several of these systems from different vendors, which is why interoperability between them — and with finance, HR and identity systems — matters as much as any individual product’s features.
Pre-award, post-award and eRA
The pre-award/post-award split mirrors the research-grant lifecycle. Pre-award is everything up to the award decision: identifying funding, costing a proposal, internal approvals and submission. Post-award is everything after: setting up the account, managing spend, meeting reporting deadlines and closing out. Electronic research administration (eRA) systems aim to join these into a single workflow so that information entered at the proposal stage flows through to award management without re-keying. Well-known examples in this space include Cayuse, Kuali Research (open source), Streamlyne and InfoEd, alongside finance-led modules from major ERP vendors.
Research information systems and reporting
Separate from the grants pipeline, research information management systems (CRIS) — such as Pure, Elements, Converis, Esploro and Worktribe — record the outputs of research and the relationships between projects, funding, people and publications. These systems power staff profiles, open-access compliance monitoring and national assessment returns. For many institutions the research-administration software estate is therefore a combination of an eRA/grants pipeline and a CRIS, with identity and persistent-identifier services tying the two together.
Why interoperability is the hard part
The recurring challenge with research administration software is integration. A proposal’s data should populate the award record; the award should link to the resulting publications and datasets; the people on it should resolve to stable ORCID iDs and the organisations to ROR identifiers; and contributions should carry CRediT roles. This only works when systems exchange data using shared standards rather than bespoke point-to-point connectors. That is the entire rationale for the standards CASRAI championed — the Catalogue of Elements (now with euroCRIS), CERIF, and CRediT — which exist to let these systems understand one another instead of each holding its own incompatible version of the truth.
Key facts
At a glance
- Pre-award: proposal preparation, budgeting, submission
- Post-award: award set-up, grants and financial management, reporting
- eRA: electronic research administration joining pre- and post-award
- Compliance: ethics, conflict-of-interest, regulatory approvals
- CRIS: research information systems for outputs, projects and reporting
- Hard part: interoperability via ORCID, ROR, DOI, CERIF and CRediT
Common questions
FAQ
What is research administration software?+
It is the family of systems institutions use to manage the business of research: pre-award proposal and budgeting tools, post-award grants and financial management, compliance systems, and research information management systems (CRIS) that record projects, outputs and impact.
What is the difference between pre-award and post-award systems?+
Pre-award systems support everything up to the funding decision — finding funding, costing proposals, internal approval and submission. Post-award systems handle everything after the award — account set-up, managing spend, reporting and close-out. eRA systems aim to join the two into one workflow.
What is electronic research administration (eRA)?+
Electronic research administration (eRA) is the use of integrated software to manage the research-grant lifecycle electronically, joining proposal preparation, submission and award management so information flows through without being re-entered.
Is a CRIS the same as research administration software?+
A CRIS is one type of research administration software — focused on recording and reporting research information (projects, outputs, people). It usually sits alongside, rather than replaces, the pre-award/post-award grants systems.
Why is interoperability so important for these systems?+
Because the same information moves across many systems — proposal to award to outputs — it only flows cleanly if those systems exchange data using shared standards such as ORCID, ROR, DOI, CERIF and CRediT, rather than bespoke connectors.
