In the past, when undergraduates or professors wanted to do research at NC State, they would have to go through a plethora of different departments and administrative services. In 2021, the Office of Research and Innovation is projecting to release a new, university-wide, streamlined platform that allows researchers to complete and update applications and information in one place.
NC State plans to invest in the Enterprise Research Administration (ERA), a state-of-the-art process, in order to compete with other research universities and aid in innovation unlike ever before.
Genevieve Garland, the director for research operations & chief of staff in the Office of Research and Innovation, and Sherrie Settle, the director of sponsored programs in the Office of Research and Innovation are heading the project. Settle said that moving away from the paper-based system will make sure that research is done in a timely manner.
“It will manage long-term research, agreements, contracts, research protocols, subject-research protocols and disclosures and relationships,” Settle said. “These are things that are handled in a not-very-integrated way currently… So, this new program will give us the opportunity to address these things and have them talk to each other. We’re hoping that students and researchers will get better, more timely information out of it.”
The motivation for the program was primarily to streamline organization and administrative aspects of research, according to Garland.
“The interface will also be more modern,” Garland said. “Though the older systems are still good ones, we took a look at what other universities are moving towards and did a survey and agreed that an outside vendor was best for NC State,” said Garland.
In terms of how the project is getting done, NC State hired a third-party vendor who specializes in this industry.
“The product platform is something that other universities have, but our system will certainly look like an NC State system, and will be designed to meet our particular needs,” Garland said.
Garland said that training will be key in the implementation of the ERA program in order for students, faculty and staff to begin to use it effectively.
“Most of the users are currently faculty and staff, however, there will be student engagement,” Garland said. “We have training as part of our implementation process; there will be self-guided training and in-person training for the different modules. And we are thinking a lot about the different user groups; certain offices will be using the system every day and will have a lot of hands-on training.”
According to Settle, the project will directly impact faculty and staff most, but leaders hope that it will create a more research-friendly academic culture.
“It will mostly be faculty and staff using the interface — however, undergraduate and graduate students, more rarely, interact with the program,” Settle said. “We hope that this will lead to more students getting involved in research, we know that this part has been a hurdle in the past.”
Though it will be an investment, Settle said that it is important that resources are provided for NC State to grow in its research and scholarship.
Garland discussed the importance of research as a part of the university saying that it helps develop education.
“The people and the resources are an important part of what NC State does — the people that are involved with research across campus are the people who teach classes,” Garland said. “Because they are involved in these research projects, we have a better education.”
