RFP02102026 - Electronic Research Administration (e-RA) System
| Agency: | University of Arkansas |
|---|---|
| State: | Arkansas |
| Type of Government: | State & Local |
| NAICS Category: |
|
| Posted Date: | Feb 18, 2026 |
| Due Date: | Mar 6, 2026 |
| Solicitation No: | RFP02102026 |
| Original Source: | Please Login to View Page |
| Contact information: | Please Login to View Page |
| Bid Documents: | Please Login to View Page |
| closing date | information | award scoring & tabulation | award status |
|
03/06/26 |
RFP02102026 - Electronic Research Administration (e-RA) System Issuing Campus - University of Arkansas Fayetteville (UAF)
|
Pending | Pending |
Attachment Preview
Request for Proposal (RFP)
RFP No. RFP02102026
Electronic Research Administration (e-RA) System
RFP RELEASE DATE: February 10, 2026
NON-MANDATORY PRE-PROPOSAL:
PROPOSAL DUE DATE:
PROPOSAL DUE TIME:
BID OPENING EVENT:
February 18, 2026 2:30 PM
CST March 6, 2026*
2:30 PM CST*
2:30 PM CST
SUBMIT ALL PROPOSALS TO: UA Formal Bid Submission
(NOTE: Take care to choose the CORRECT BID NUMBER from the dropdown menu.)
Signature Required for Proposal
Respondent complies with all articles of the Standard Terms and Conditions documents as counterpart to this RFP
document, and with all articles within the RFP document. If Respondent receives the University’s purchase order,
Respondent agrees to furnish the items and/or services listed herein at the prices and/or under the conditions as indicated in
the RFP.
Respondent Name:
Mailing Address:
City, State, Zip:
Telephone:
Email:
Authorized Signature: _______________________________________
Date: ______________
Typed/Printed Name of Signor: ________________________________
Title: ______________
*Under no circumstances will late bids be accepted.
Bid opening event will be conducted at the date and time specified via Microsoft Teams. Notice of bid opening event
will be posted on HogBid once the Teams meeting is set up.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL/COOPERATIVE USE OF COMPETITIVELY BID PROPOSALS AND
CONTRACTS:
In accordance with Arkansas Code Annotated § 19-11-249, any State public procurement unit, including any University
of Arkansas System campus or unit, may participate in any contract resulting from this solicitation upon approval by the
issuing agency and with a participating addendum signed by the contractor.
1
General Campus Background for University of Arkansas
Founded in 1871 as a land-grant institution, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Arkansas (UofA), is the flagship
campus of the University of Arkansas System. Our students represent all 50 states and more than 120 countries. The UofA
comprises 10 colleges and schools offering an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate
students in more than 270 academic programs. The UofA contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and
applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. As of Fall
2023, student enrollment totaled approximately 32,140. The faculty count totaled 1,490 and the staff count totaled 3,350.
The UofA is one of the nation’s top public research universities and the state’s foremost partner and resource for
education and economic development. Its public service activities reach every county in Arkansas, throughout the nation,
and around the world. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the UofA among only 3 percent (3%) of universities in
America that have the highest level of research activity.
1. DESCRIPTION AND OVERVIEW OF RFP
The Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas, acting on behalf of the University of Arkansas, located in
Fayetteville, Arkansas (UA) is seeking bid proposals from qualified and reputable Respondents to provide an
Electronic Research Administration System e-RA pursuant to the specifications, terms and conditions stated in
this RFP (“Proposal(s)”).
UA Division of Research & Innovation is committed to advancing research through a robust support system that
will enhance our faculty and researchers’ ability to secure and manage external funding, ensure compliance with
regulatory requirements, and facilitate collaboration across disciplines in support of UA’s 150 Strategic Priorities.
The Strategic priorities identified three pillars, one of which is for UA to be a university focused on research
excellence.
As part of our strategic initiatives to modernize and streamline research administration processes, UA seeks to
implement a comprehensive Electronic Research Administration (ERA) system.
Currently, UA’s research administration is supported by a combination of manual processes and legacy
systems that are increasingly inadequate to meet the growing demands of our research community. These
limitations have led to inefficiencies in managing pre-award and compliance activities, challenges in maintaining
compliance with federal and state regulations, and difficulties in providing accurate and timely reports for decision-
making.
UA is seeking a turn-key and highly functional Electronic Research Administration Platform (e-RA) that can span,
at a minimum, proposals, award management, and compliance. UA is an R1, comprehensive research university
with partnerships with a large variety of federal agencies. The proposed platform must support approximately 1,100
researchers and 150 research administrators. The approach should streamline research administration, improve data
quality and accessibility, and ensure scalability for future needs. This solicitation seeks to identify a solution that is
user-friendly and integrates seamlessly with existing applications.
UA is seeking to award a term contract for this platform to the Respondent that can provide the best overall value to
the University. This value will be determined by UA based on the overall competence, compliance, format and
presentation of each RFP response and in-person presentation, as necessary. Respondents may submit a proposal for
all the services entailed in this RFP or may submit a proposal for a specific service identified in this RFP. Note also
that the award may be split between Respondents for each of the services for which bidding is requested.
Respondent presentations may be held following the bid due date. Projected timeframe for when presentations
could occur is specified in the “Projected Timetable of Activities” section of this RFP. Please keep these dates open
to schedule a presentation if you are selected to present.
The University of Arkansas seeks a modern, cloud‑based, multi-tenant e‑RA solution to manage the full sponsored
research lifecycle—pre‑award (proposal development, routing, S2S submission), compliance (Institutional Review
Board (IRB) / Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)/ Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC),
2
Conflict of Interest (CoI), Conflict of Commitment (CoC), export controls, data use), and post‑award (award setup,
modifications, reporting)—with strong integrations to enterprise systems and federal sponsor platforms.
UA expects to achieve the following goals (at minimum) through the selected Respondent:
• Streamline processes, reduce manual reentry, and improve transparency across departments.
• Ensure robust compliance with Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), National Institute of Health (NIH)/ Public
Health Service (PHS), CoI/CoC (42 CFR Part 50 Subpart F), FERPA/HIPAA considerations, and export
control (EAR/ITAR) requirements.
• Provide reliable System‑to‑System (S2S) submission capabilities with Grants.gov/NIH/ National Science
Foundation (NSF).
• Offer role‑based dashboards and analytics for faculty, research administrators, and leadership.
• Require configuration over customization and support rapid compliance updates (e.g., 2 CFR 200 revisions,
sponsor form changes).
2. SCOPE OF WORK
The successful respondent will provide, configure, implement, migrate, train, and support a secure, SaaS e-RA
platform covering modules below, with documented Application Programming Interface (API) and
integrations.
2.1 Functional Modules
A. Pre-Award & Proposal Development
• Opportunity discovery, internal routing/approvals, budget tools, and attachments.
• S2S Submission: Support Grants.gov Applicant S2S to federal agencies; validate sponsor rules; track
errors/warnings; and retain submission artifacts. Must demonstrate compatibility with NIH
ASSIST/eRA Commons and NSF Research.gov processing steps and validations.
• Sponsor Compliance Checks (e.g., NIH eRA credentials for key personnel).
B. Research Compliance
• IRB, IACUC, IBC workflows: protocol submissions, renewals, modifications, adverse events,
determinations, committee actions, and correspondence.
• COI (Financial Conflict of Interest): Disclosures, review, management plans, and FCOI reporting via
eRA Commons.
• Data Use & Subawards: Templates, risk assessments, FDP subaward tools, and DTUA/DUA
management (import templates, tag records, and report status).
• FERPA/HIPAA: Controls to segregate education records and protected health information;
deidentification utilities and role based access aligned to privacy guidance.
• Export Controls (EAR/ITAR): Flags for controlled technologies, technology control plan (TCP)
workflows, and reporting.
C. Post Award & Award Management
• Award setup, terms, accounts/grants mapping, subaward issuance, amendments, deliverables tracking,
and correspondence repository; align with Uniform Guidance.
• Notifications & Requests (e.g., no cost extensions, prior approvals) and sponsor specific forms
(RPPR, PPR). NSF RPPR/Research.gov integration and status checks.
D. Reporting, Analytics & Dashboards
• Role based dashboards (PI, department admin, compliance officers, central SPO).
• Standard and ad-hoc reporting (proposal pipelines, turnaround times, COI status, protocol metrics,
award expenditures, subaward cycles); export to Excel/CSV; schedule/report bursting.
• Compliance reports aligned to 2 CFR 200 updates and institutional policies.
E. Identity & Access; Accounts & Profiles
3
• Support identity providers and 2FA/MFA; role mapping for NIH eRA Commons roles awareness.
• Primary Investigator (PI) /Institutional profiles compatible with NIH/NSF submission ecosystems
(UEI, SAM)
2.2 Technical Requirements
A. Architecture & Hosting
• SaaS, multi-tenant architecture hosted in U.S. datacenters, with SOC 2-type controls, documented
uptime SLAs, and disaster recovery RPO/RTO.
• FedRAMP-like security posture preferred; at minimum, controls must support reasonable
cybersecurity measures required under 2 CFR 200 (2024 revisions).
B. Integrations
• Financials/ERP: Bi-directional data exchange with University financial system (e.g., Workday),
including award/grant set-up, budgets, accounts, and subawards; support APIs, webhooks, SFTP.
• Supplier onboarding/payments: Integrate with PaymentWorks or comparable onboarding platform
for subrecipient/vendor data.
• HR/Identity: Sync personnel, roles, and affiliations; handle multiple appointments and identity
providers (InCommon/ Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)/ OpenID Connect (OIDC)
• Sponsor Systems:
o Grants.gov S2S (current version library, WSDL/MTOM support) and hashing/certificates per
Grants.gov specifications.
o NIH eRA: Support exchange/validation APIs described in NIH S2S client guides (SOAP and
REST).
o NSF Research.gov: Acknowledge Research.gov processing of Grants.gov submissions and related
pre-/post-check validation flows; optionally expose Research.gov submission status via API if
available.
• Document Management: Integrate with campus repositories (SharePoint/Teams or Box) for retention
and search.
C. Data Management
• Data Model: Sponsor, proposal, protocol, award, subaward, compliance disclosures, and attachments.
• Retention & Privacy: Configurable retention schedules; field-level security; audit trails;
FERPA/HIPAA safeguards and redaction/de-identification tooling.
• Export Controls: Labeling and access controls for controlled technical data; Technology Control Plan
(TCP) workflows.
D. Accessibility & UX
• Web Conent Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA compliance; responsive design for mobile;
user-friendly forms and task queues—consistent with leading university implementations.
2.3 Compliance Requirements
Respondents must demonstrate how the system supports:
• Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) procurement and grants standards (documented procedures, conflicts
of interest, oversight). Provide mappings and reports facilitating Subparts C–F compliance, including
2024 revisions.
4
• NIH/PHS FCOI (42 CFR 50 Subpart F): Disclosure intake, review workflows, management plans, and
eRA Commons FCOI reporting.
• FERPA/HIPAA: Controls for handling education records and student health information per joint
guidance; exceptions handling; consent management.
• Export Controls (EAR/ITAR): Identification, restricted access, and documentation processes for
controlled items/technical data.
• NSF/NIH S2S & Sponsor Rules: Grants.gov schema compatibility, sponsor validations (NIH, NSF)
and status feedbacks.
2.4 Implementation & Project Management
A. Project Plan & Timeline
Provide a phased plan (Discovery → Configuration → Integrations → Data Migration → Training → Go-Live),
with a typical timeline based on university scale. Include key milestones and deliverables.
B. Data Migration
Migrate historical proposal, protocol, award, subaward, and compliance records from legacy systems (specify
formats); include data validation plans and reconciliation reports.
C. Training & Change Management
Role-based training (PI, Dept Admin, Compliance, SPO, Finance); knowledge base and help resources; ongoing
refresher webinars; alignment with campus governance.
D. Testing & UAT
Scripted end-to-end tests, including S2S submission to Grants.gov training endpoints; NIH/NSF validation
scenarios; COI/FCOI test cases; FERPA export control role tests.
2.5 Service Levels & Support
A. The successful respondent will provide a phased implementation, training and other professional services that
may be called out as part of the overall implementation of an ERA system. UA anticipates an initial go-live
date no later than January 1, 2027 for pre-award, with additional modules implemented in coordination with
the Workday implementation.
B. The respondent will provide at a minimum:
• Training options as part of their solution that address different learning styles (classroom, online, hands-
on) that includes training materials and possible certification pathways. Ongoing training options should
also be available.
• Phased implementation, data migration with validation, training and change management. Operations
profile with uptime ≥99.9%, security audits, incident response, documented upgrade cadence and sandbox
refresh options.
• Developing the following items in conjunction with UA and based on an agreed overall project timeline.
o Project schedule
o Project roadmap with suggested phases or stages to implement each module to avoid complexities
in the implementation process.
o Comprehensive implementation methodology/plan that includes, but may not necessarily be
limited to the following:
▪ High-level system implementation plan including detail about data mapping, data
conversion and data extract activities required from the existing system to the new system.
Include what you consider to be out of scope.
5
This page summarizes the opportunity, including an overview and a preview of the attached documents.
* Disclaimer: This website provides information about bids, requests for proposals (RFPs), or requests for qualifications (RFQs) for convenience only and does not serve as an official public notice. Individuals who wish to respond to or inquire about bids, RFPs, or RFQs should contact the relevant government department directly.
Sign-up for a Free Trial, Government Bid Alerts
With Free Trial, you can:
You will have a full access to bids, website, and receive daily bid report via email and web.