The University of Texas (UT) System approved Cayuse424 for UT System schools, endorsing the value of a Web-based approach to federal grant applications. This article in Texas Technology Monthly details some of those benefits and quotes several of our contented customers.
One important point is underscored: the downloadable forms from Grants.gov are not suitable to the task of the electronic federal grant application, for either large or small institutions.
This is a question we hear from time to time. I could say, "don't ask us, ask any one of our customers who have switched from PureEdge," but that's not really an answer.
I could also say, "there's no such thing as a free lunch," but that's been said.
PureEdge is only "free" in terms of license cost. In terms of labor,
preparation, rework and frustration, it's quite expensive, especially
when you calculate the labor cost throughout the research organization.
The inefficiencies in PureEdge
forms creates a direct time and labor expense to the enterprise. Just because an organization doesn't measure that expense does not mean it's not there. It's there, and it's significant.
It is exactly this inherent inefficiency that is addressed and solved by Cayuse424. Customers who adopt the Cayuse solution
endorse it enthusiastically.
In late March, NIH issued a Sources Sought Notice (SSN) looking for info on a Web-based solution capable of handling electronic submission proposals for the complex mechanisms. These are funding mechanisms such as Program Projects which have not been converted to PureEdge or Adobe and are still submitted on paper using the PHS398 forms.
Cayuse responded enthusiastically to the SSN this week because it is aligned perfectly with what we do: eliminate paper and downloadable forms from the grants process.
My humble personal opinion is that the PDF-based approach is an interim solution. People collaborate and do business on the Web, and the Web is the way Grants.gov has to go. It's also how Cayuse424 works today, by the way. I'm happy to see NIH taking a serious look at leveraging this technology more fully.
We launched Subawards.com on Wednesday, April 9. This is a 100% Web-based approach to creating subcontract budgets for federal grant applications. We've designed this first release to benefit primarily the existing Cayuse424 community, but we have larger ambitions.
The federal grant community needs a Web-based work environment for the preparation and submission of grant proposals. Subawards.com provides a free, powerful, flexible way to do one part of the process: collaborate on budget proposals. Check it out.
There's a growing clamor for more federal research funding coming from
some of the most powerful and important research institutions in the
country, who have created an organization called Broken Pipeline to publicize the problem.
Some sobering statistics on the difficulty of securing funding, as reported in Inside Higher Education:
Congressional testimony and sponsorship of this call to action was given by representatives from two Cayuse customer institutions, The Ohio State University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
We did a little survey of participants in the RESADM-L listserv, an email discussion list that serves the community of research administrators (RAs) at universities and colleges in the US. (The listserv archives are here.)
Grants.gov will soon be releasing a new set of downloadable forms based on Adobe technology. We wanted to gauge the impact on the RAs who are responsible for preparing and submitting proposals. This is a non-scientific survey, but it supports what we hear anecdotally all the time: that downloadable forms are inherently difficult to work with. The results of the survey are available here in PDF format.
As I've said before, Cayuse customers don't have to worry about downloadable forms nearly as much as institutions that insist on using them exclusively. There is definitely a better way.
An Oregon-wide research initiative is gaining traction, as reported in the Portland Business Journal.
An ambitious education plan that could turn Portland into a research and development powerhouse is likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Cayuse intends to support this effort by making our Web-based software broadly available within Oregon. Our solution offers a competitive advantage to any organization that applies for federal research funds. We want to see that advantage work for us here in our home state. We're in talks with some key players, and expect to have more news about this soon.
The Dept. of Energy is one of many agencies that offer funding
opportunities that can be completed and submitted with Cayuse424. Some
of their opportunities are listed on this page along with some not quite entirely accurate information.
In fact:
- Though Grants.gov "utilizes PureEdge software", it also accepts proposals from other tools.
- Grants.gov does NOT require you to download the PureEdge Viewer to
submit grant proposals.
You can use, for example, a 100% Web-based, hosted proposal
development platform.
We make this point repeatedly with the agencies and prospective customers.
While acknowledging positives in certain aspects of the President's current budget
proposal, FASEB (PDF) also expresses some strong disappointment.
"...we commend President Bush for his championing of competitive research at the USDA. But neglecting NIH at the same time is failing to grasp the interconnectedness of science..."
Underfunding of the NIH, in particular, is generating fairly widespread discontent.
The ResearchChannel hosts videos and other resources from research at its consortium members.
ResearchChannel was founded by a consortium of leading research and academic institutions to share the valuable work of their researchers with the public.
It's a multimedia-rich site, offering over 3,500 titles on a wide spectrum of topics. It is laudable for its efforts to make the results of research accessible to a much wider audience.
Cayuse customer University of Wisconsin Madison is a consortium member, and offering programming from their extensive research organization. A couple other Cayuse customers are contributors, including The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin.
