Research Administration Management Portal (RAMP) goes live June 26

By Natasha Kassulke, natasha.kassulke@wisc.edu

The Research Administration Management Portal (RAMP) goes live on June 26.  RAMP, within the Administration Transformation Program, will provide PIs and research administrators across the UW–Madison campus with streamlined research administration processes and greater software functionality.

“RAMP will help us to more effectively support our researchers and meet the ever-changing requirements that come with being a world-class research institution,” says Steve Ackerman, vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “We will now have the ability to evaluate the performance of programs and investigators, and model financial forecasts more accurately, along with providing better insight into the complete (pre-award through post-award) research portfolio.”

RAMP implements Huron modules to enhance UW research support in proposal development and submission, research contracting, non-financial post-award management, employee compensation compliance, financial forecasting and export controls. Huron is a management consulting firm offering services to the healthcare, life sciences, commercial and Higher Education industries.

RAMP will be complemented by implementation of Workday, a system that will unite most financial functions on campus in a single, cloud-based platform.

“With RAMP and Workday systems working together, we will be able to streamline the work of researchers, PIs and administrators and reduce administrative burden,” explains Mark Sweet, director of grants and contracts for Research and Sponsored Programs (RSP).

RAMP will make it easier for researchers to submit funding proposals. The UW currently uses the Wisconsin Proposal Electronic Routing (WISPER) system. But part of ATP’s mission includes implementation of new software – Workday – to replace WISPER. Eventually, RAMP will also replace Cayuse to submit proposals to Grants.Gov.

“The implementation of a single, integrated system has the potential to greatly improve the work of research administrators,” says Kurt McMillen, Research Administration Strategy Lead for ATP. “It will also result in less time being spent on administrative tasks and a greater focus on growing UW’s research enterprise.”

RAMP has forms allowing for submission to Grants.Gov directly from RAMP.

When RAMP goes live on June 26, end users will log in to RAMP that day. End users will still be able to access WISPER, but in view-only mode. Cayuse 424 will remain operational from June 26 to Sept 30 for proposals that are already in process.

For the Award receipt process, most awards will come to RSP, which populate the RAMP award record and send a unit review request to the department administrators for award setup. When the unit review is complete, RSP will set-up the award for spending.

The Agreements module of RAMP has expanded functionality from WISPER and is a place for contracts and other documents that require negotiation to be tracked and routed for workflow. These records can be tied to funding proposals and awards as necessary for the workflow of sponsored projects and research.

Another impact of RAMP implementation is export control functionality.

Several functions are already live. The Employee Compensation Compliance portion of the RAMP project has been completed. The Financial Forecasting module is  in production for primary use by the Budget Office and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration units.

Anyone with a UW Net-ID can create a RAMP record.

RAMP training classes are being offered starting this month and details can be found on the RAMP training page. Visit the training page to also review introductory information, demos, and a terminology glossary for the Huron Research Suite Grants and Agreements modules.