Managing grants often means pushing paper. But the big source of grant money, the federal government, is going digital. And this move to transmit proposals through mouse-clicks rather than mail trucks has universities shopping for better software to administer their research.
The Kuali Foundation hopes its wares will be the most tempting—and the least expensive. A nonprofit group that coordinates colleges’ efforts to produce free software that is built through a collaborative, “open source” process, Kuali is bringing out a research-administration system that it says could ultimately save universities millions.
By Marc Parry