Research Grants Management System

Concepts

• software package
• lshtm research projects
• research management
• contracts management
• research projects
• core systems
• a full research grants management solution
• saas research grants management system
• research grants management system
• the lshtm research portfolio

Location

Description

The proposed contract is for the supply and implementation of a commercial off the shelf SaaS Research Grants Management System to manage research projects from pre-award (budgeting of grants), through to ethics, contracts and post-award. This contract will replace the existing finance system module, the contract and support for which is expiring, whilst providing enhanced and extended functionality for the LSHTM research portfolio

Total Quantity or Scope

The contract and support of the existing LSHTM finance system including the research costing & pricing functionality is ending in December 2025. Moving to Cloud-based solutions for core systems is in line with LSHTM IT strategy whilst the functionality needed to support LSHTM research projects means a full research grants management solution is required. The assessment of options for the Finance System has means that LSHTM will require two separate systems, one for Finance and one for research management. Worktribe is the only vendor that offers an off-the-shelf, ready-to-use solution with end-to-end functionality and fully integrated workflows for Pre-Award, Post-Award, contracts management, due diligence, timesheets, ethics and reporting within a single, user-friendly platform.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 48100000 - Industry specific software package

Legal Justification

Under Clause 32(b) (ii) of Public Contract Regulations 2015: The negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for works contract, public supply contracts and public service contracts in any of the following cases: - (b) where the works, suppliers or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons: - (ii) competition is absent for technical reasons Through review of frameworks, soft market testing and informal discussions other institutions, we have concluded that Worktribe is the only proven solution that meets all of LSHTM’s requirements below. A single SaaS system providing one access point to manage the lifecycle of research projects. Including: - Pre-award – budgeting, costing and pricing proposals based on TRAC/Full Economic Costing (FEC) (including UKRI and NIHR budget templates), approval workflows and managing applications - Contracts – supporting contract negotiations with funders, partners and collaborators. - Due diligence – create and undertake bespoke risk assessment of funders, partners, collaborators and countries. Evaluate the financial and non-financial risks, and provide an overall risk score for the organisations and countries visible across the platform - Research ethics - management tools including bespoke question sets, workflow allocation rules, full ethics review process including for amendments, ethics committee management, automated generation of outcome letters and reports, configurable workflows for progress reports, end of study reports and safety reports, and risk allocation and visibility - Post-award – in-built, seamless integration with the Pre-award applications/contracts, project set up, integration with finance system, monitoring of spend against budget, workflow management of budget virements, adjustments, supplements, no-cost extensions and final reconciliation and project close out - Timesheets – sector-specific tools to record and approve actual staff time on a project and adjustments to costs incurred in compliance with the requirements of research funders and other statutory organisations - Single SaaS platform data management for the research lifecycle, seamless links between the research lifecycle areas, and to streamline reporting - has proven integration capability with LSHTM’s new finance system (TechnologyOne’s OneEducation system) and HR system (iTrent) for seamless transition of information for costing project proposals, setting up project codes - is a mature, tried and tested product that does not require any significant capability development - Proven track record with HEIs with similar integration requirements and research portfolio complexity - enables user groups role based access through a user-friendly interface - is offered off-the-shelf (i.e. no customisation required) delivered within LSHTM’s strict implementation timescales Limitations of other solutions included: - Primary capabilities were either as a Current Research Information System (CRIS), an ethics system or a timesheet system. Management of research outputs / institutional repository is outside of scope for this project and not currently of interest. - No established FEC tool for research and innovation projects. - No tools to manage the contracts aspect of the requirement. - Complex, unproven integrations with other systems required to deliver the full requirement. - Not widely proven by HEIs with similar integration requirements and research portfolio complexity. Multiple systems would - be detrimental to the user experience, - increase training requirements and costs - impact user adoption. - Prevent a ‘one stop shop’ to monitor and view the status of a project. - Increase complexity through integrations between multiple systems as well as implementation time and create additional costs.

Other Information

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