SUBJECT:

Introducing Electronic Proposal Development (ePD)

I am pleased to introduce a new system called Electronic Proposal Development (ePD) that will be rolled out to the campus research community beginning January 2015. ePD has been developed as the first initiative under the Electronic Research Administrative Program (eRAP).

ePD will replace the outdated paper-based processes currently used by department administrators and sponsored projects offices for General Campus, Health Sciences and Marine Sciences. The system has undergone extensive involvement by research administrators and department business offices, resulting in functionality that aligns with the business needs of the campus research community.

Alignment with Campus Strategic Goals - ePD creates an agile, sustainable, and supportive infrastructure that will streamline and improve the delivery of sponsored research business processes to the campus by:

* Streamlining business processes across all VC areas
* Providing electronic routing functionality
* Facilitating the quality and accuracy of enterprise-wide sponsored research data resulting in improved sponsored research reports
* Laying the foundation for the adoption of a robust system that will automatically integrate with sponsor systems

Benefits to Faculty

* Web based system allows 24/7 access for researchers
* Easy to view and approve proposals, online or remotely, by using mobile devices
* All documents and information are stored in a central repository for collaboration between participating PI's and co-Principal investigators
* Sponsored projects offices will have visibility of proposals at all times to facilitate and provide expert guidance to the PI and Department

Benefits to Proposal Preparers, Approvers and Business Officers

* Replaces paper-based process with an electronic one
* Electronic routing saves time and shows who has approved or "signed" the proposal
* One stop repository for current proposal version eliminates opportunities for errors and facilitates real time input and edits among multiple offices
* Automatic notifications sent when action is required, containing links for easy access to proposal records
* Combines and replaces several different processes into one (ex: getting a proposal number and filling out the paper RES form)
* Creates a proposal record that can be copied and reused in future

Because it is not possible to anticipate and plan for all needs and contingencies through testing alone, UC San Diego will be implementing the ePD system using a phased approach. This will allow us to continuously improve the system and remain responsive to user feedback.

The ePD team is working with representatives from across the campus to identify a roll-out plan that will be combined into "waves" of units that are most likely to be aligned by discipline and early adoption.

I invite you to view some brief videos that highlight the benefits of ePD. There are two videos at this link:

http://goo.gl/kM9u1p

* ePD for Department Proposal Administrators
* ePD for Faculty

For more information about ePD, visit our web site:

http://epd.ucsd.edu

I appreciate your support of this important campus-wide effort as it is launched.

Sandra A. Brown Vice Chancellor for Research