Kent State is now using Coeus, a web-based grants management system designed to navigate through the complicated process of applying for research grants.

Provost Robert Frank said Coeus was put in place in order to help simplify the process for applying for grants.

“(Coeus) assures that we follow all the federal requirements, which are quite complicated,” Frank said.

Coeus, named after the Greek titan of intelligence, was developed at M.I.T. to be one of the first “cradle-to-grave” award management systems in the nation, according to the M.I.T. Coeus website.

Lori Burchard, director of sponsored programs, said Coeus has been integrated into the current Banner system and will cut down on inputting repetitive personal information that can already be found on Banner.

Burchard said her department has been using Coeus behind the scenes since 2009, but faculty saw the first implementation of the program in January with the proposal development module.

According to the Coeus website, the proposal development module aids preparation of grant proposals, routes to obtain internal approvals and allows for system-to-system submission of proposals to sponsors.

“It’s a very complicated implementation,” Frank said.

Coeus will assure “there are no surprises the day a grant comes in,” Frank said.

Burchard said this module can be linked to Grants.gov, which is the submission system for federal grants.

She said that Coeus also cuts down on the amount of time it takes to submit a grant proposal because it allows internal approvals to be done on the system rather than sending out paper forms to be approved.

Frank said this program was much needed.

“The truth is that university based science has become very complicated and there’s so many stakeholders in the enterprise between the compliance issues and the budget issues and the lab issues,” Frank said. “You’ve got to have a system that helps you organize and address those things.”

Frank said Coeus will help the university keep up with the changing times.

“It’s not like it was in the old days where a pipe-smoking professor gets an idea and just sits in his office and thinks about it,” Frank said. “This is really a very big and complicated business and we have to have something like this in place.”

Contact Britni Williams at [email protected]