Schedule and Roadmap
Communication and change management is ongoing, and throughout these phases, the university community will have opportunities to provide critical input.
Planning Project 2024–2025
Recommend path forward, request funding, identify resources
Two-year planning effort and discovery phase engaged with key campus research administration partners to document eResearch system functionality and business requirements, explore the current research administration software market, participate with community and advisory groups, benchmark with higher education and R1 peer institutions, conduct a fit-gap analysis based on requirements and initial vendor demonstrations, and develop a recommendation for how U-M will move forward to complete migrations by the deadline.
High-level accomplishments:
- Campus Survey Results
- Conduct an RFI
- Commission the Steering Committee to guide decisions through the RFP phase
- Kick off data strategy workstream
- Submit IT Capital Request
RFP 2026
Issue Request for Proposals, Negotiate Contracts
U-M will conduct a competitive bid process to evaluate, select, and negotiate contracts with a new research administration software provider, and potentially system implementers or other consultants. The RFP process will include hands-on evaluations/proofs-of-concept with finalists. There will be opportunities to review vendors, provide insights, and share feedback in the selection process throughout the year.
Implementation Planning 2026–2027
Plan implementation, Onboard Vendors
Once vendors are selected, U-M will work closely with them to develop an overall onboarding plan and strategy to migrate our current products to new platforms. This will include integrating U-M and vendor project teams, as well as developing a more detailed implementation timeline.
Systems Implementation 2027–2030
Staggered rollout with business process changes, build, test, training, data migration
We anticipate a staggered rollout of the eResearch modules, starting with detailed designs, business process mapping reviews, and modifications to set up our workflows in the new systems. Implementation will include time for testing, training, data migration, and feedback cycles ahead of each launch. We anticipate legacy systems will remain available concurrently in this phase, and systems to access historical data will be made available.
Stabilization & Decommissioning 2030–2031
Monitor, ongoing fixes, enhancements, support users, record archival; Complete migration, decommission legacy platforms
Our target is to complete migrations to new systems ahead of the vendor's end-of-support deadline with minimal disruption to ensure business continuity and continuous support. Once stabilized, we will decommission legacy systems and continue to provide access to historical data.