Harmonizing and modernizing tri-agency grants management
The three federal granting agencies, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) have embarked on a project to modernize their grants management system to better support applicants, administrators and reviewers during the grants management lifecycle.
Why are new systems needed?
The agencies’ existing grants management operate on dated technology and are limited in their ability to adapt to the changing needs of both the research community and the agencies themselves.
The current systems are complex, not well integrated, administratively burdensome and time-consuming to use.
The technology that they are built on is out-of-date and is increasingly challenging to maintain and evolve.
The data architecture is not well structured, making it difficult to share, extract and analyze data.
What will a new grants management solution accomplish?
The TGMS will procure a user-centric solution that will support the grants management lifecycle (i.e., from program design to end-of-grant reporting, which includes the function currently provided by the Canadian Common CV) to achieve the following business outcomes:
- Increased internal and external user/stakeholder satisfaction
- Increased flexibility and responsiveness to meet Government of Canada priorities and agencies’ demands
- Optimized resources and workforce for an increased organizational effectiveness
- Strengthened credibility of the three granting agencies and reinforced reputation as leaders in research
What is envisioned for TGMS?
The agencies aspire to select a grants management solution that will enable them to achieve the vision below. Through ongoing industry and stakeholder engagement, the TGMS team is acquiring knowledge to guide the agencies in the selection of a solution that will best align with this vision.
How are the agencies doing it?
The agencies have adopted a client-centric approach to gather user needs and requirements for the new grants management solution through codesign activities. The results of these activities are being shared with potential solution providers to provide insights into the agencies business and our stakeholders. This information is also supporting the procurement process.
Who is involved?
As the TGMS project is rooted in codesign, the TGMS team has been leading a number of engagement activities. In fact, one of the initiative’s principles is to engage early and often with TGMS stakeholders. Here is a snapshot of the TGMS engagement activities to date:
To ensure the project takes into consideration external perspectives, TGMS has also established two collaboration groups: the External advisory board and the External change agent network.
If you would like to get involved, please email TGMS-SGSTO@cihr-irsc.gc.ca.