What we provide

We provide maintenance, support and development of the IT applications used to operate the business processes within the Research Support Office of Corporate Services.

Unless otherwise stated, all the processes are supported through modules of SAP. At present the processes supported include:

• Research Development (processes to identify funding opportunities and bring together interdisciplinary groups of researchers with common interests). We developed and support the IRIS (Integrated Research Information System) and also the Expert Finder based on the Post Graduate Prospectus. The Research Support Office have subscriptions to services provided by external suppliers ResearchResearch.com and COS.
• Research Grants and Contracts (processes to assist costing and submission of grant applications). We developed and maintain the bespoke SAP development also known as Lucre.
• Research Finance (processes to monitor and control financial management of post-award externally funded research projects)
• Management Information (processes to provide regular reports of new grant applications and awards)
• Publications Recording. IRIS (a non-SAP university hosted service) is used to record the publications generated as a result of research within the University.
• Patents and Intellectual Property Recording. Inteum (a non-SAP university hosted service) is used to record and monitor this information.

What you can expect

Our Business Analysts and Developers provide operational advice and guidance on the use of the existing business application suite.  

We can also provide a range of expertise so that, working with you and the Research Support Office, we can take the ideas for a new service from concept into production. 

What we expect

Requests for new services or for amendments to existing services should be filtered through the Research Support Service Review Group for review and prioritisation.

Service availability

User and system level support is provided during normal working hours Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 5.00pm. However our applications and infrastructure are becoming increasingly resilient and as such, are usually operational 24 hours per day, seven days per week. You will always be advised of planned outages.

Service charges

There is no direct charge for access to the applications that are currently in place to support the Research Support business related processes.

FAQs and related information

Further information can be accessed from the portlet on the right of this page.

Need further help?

Please contact the IT Service Desk in the first instance.