KRISTAL set to manage grants
A new IT application – KRISTAL (Knowledge Research Innovation System at Leeds) – for managing our research grant portfolio from pre-award through to post-award will launch this autumn.
Part of the Research Support Process (RSP) project, the new system replacing COSTA will facilitate the costing and pricing of applications, streamline awards set up and allow academic investigators to access information on spends against budgets for their projects on a real-time basis. It will also handle EU awards and some EKT awards; all existing research grants and contracts will be migrated to the new system.
Each Faculty has an implementation team that is working with the central project team and academic colleagues to implement the new system in the Faculties. The Faculty Implementation teams are led by the Pro-Deans for Research & Innovation and include Directors of Research & Innovation, Finance Managers and Faculty Research & Innovation Managers.
A group of 90 academic and support staff testers have just finished testing the pre-award part of system, and identified a number of bugs and changes. The general feedback from testers was extremely positive.
Next steps in the project are to increase awareness and communications about the new system within Faculties and begin testing the post-award part of the application. Centrally-run training for academic investigators will begin in early September and will be supplemented by local training sessions with academic staff as the launch date for the new application approaches in early October. The Faculty Research and Innovation Offices will also provide targeted assistance to applicants planning applications in the autumn.
Any queries in relation to this development should be directed to Faculty Research & Innovation Offices.
Posted in: Research and innovation