The roll out of the Research Information System (RIS) development is set to continue in 2018, with new functionality being piloted and rolled out across all faculties over the coming months.

RIS provides a structured way of managing the preparation, approval and submission of grant applications, as well as providing a user-friendly interface to enable projects to be managed more effectively. RIS has already replaced pFact and will replace a number of other university systems with a single, modern, integrated tool.

The first part of the RIS programme – enabling research staff to find funding opportunities and develop funding applications – went live within all faculties last June. To date, more than 2,500 funding applications have been created using RIS. This element is currently being enhanced to enable the university’s peer review and ethics processes to be supported through the system.

RIS is now being linked to the Agresso system to automatically generate project codes and budgets and to enable expenditure to be tracked against awards. The first part of the award management process, which includes the formal acceptance of an award, is set up within RIS. Credit splits has successfully passed user acceptance testing and will be piloted within the Faculty of Engineering from the end of January.

In the meantime work is also underway for RIS to support the University’s REF 2020 submission. The first part of this work focuses on using RIS to deposit and manage outputs, which will be rolled out across the University in the spring.

The RIS project sponsor and Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Science, Prof Kevin Shakesheff, will host a series of roadshows in March to showcase the new functionality within RIS prior to its launch across the university. This will include a demo of the system as well as an opportunity to ask questions. There’s not need to sign up – just turn up on the day.

• Tuesday 20 March, 4-5pm: A48, Clive Granger, University Park
• Wednesday 21 March, 3-4pm: CLT2, Exchange Building, Jubilee
• Monday 26 March, 3–4pm: B3, Life Sciences
• Wednesday 4 April, 3:30-4:30pm: A33/LR9, Food Science Building, Sutton Bonington
• Tuesday 17 April, 9.30am: DSN 205, School of Health Sciences, Derby City Hospital
• Tuesday 17 April, 3:30-4:30pm: A50, Clinical Science Building, City Hospital