The post-award effort of managing and reporting on funded research: a scoping review

Eligibility criteria

We used a broad definition of ‘post-award management’ to capture any process relevant to the set-up, management, monitoring, or reporting of externally a funded research award (funds awarded to a HEI by a government agency or charity). Processes are relevant from when the decision to fund has been made (e.g., Notification of Award) and include any type of communication or request for information (e.g., progress report) from the funder or other external research stakeholder (e.g., government sponsor) to inform on the status, outputs, outcomes or impacts of research during award delivery. Relevant internal (HEI) processes include curation and management of research data and the financial management of awards. Other relevant funder processes include methods of collection and tracking of research data (e.g., for research impact assessments). Processes carried out during award close-out and post-completion are also considered ‘post-award’ and relevant, and include end-of-grant reports and tracking the long-term impacts of research.

To be included in the review, records had to be written in English, be accessible in full text or PDF format and describe any process(es) relevant to post-award management and reporting, as per the definition above. Records were excluded if they broadly referenced to post-award management without detail on the processes involved, or if they were out of the study scope (e.g., focusing on financial management of research awards or frameworks for research impact assessment). Eligible records could be peer-reviewed publications, grey literature (e.g., blogs, reports), presentations, or websites and no limit was placed on the publication date, status, or country to capture as much of the literature as possible in what we expected to be a sparsely explored area of research.

Search strategy

All authors were involved in developing the electronic database search strategy used to identify relevant literature on post-award management and reporting of funded research.

To test the initial search term and keyword combinations, limited searches were conducted in Embase and Medline by the lead author (KC) to check the availability and relevance of titles and abstracts. Since combining all the search terms returned no results in either database, the search strategy had to be refined, whereby multiple separate single-term searches were conducted (Table 1) and the results of each search were screened separately. This process was followed by searches using search term/keyword combinations to narrow searches where possible (as shown in Table 1) and these results were also screened.

Full literature searches were undertaken in relevant electronic databases, namely Embase, Medline, Pubmed, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Additionally, manual searches of the content tables of key journals (determined using the interquartile rule for outliers) were conducted to find relevant articles published in the last year (2022-23). Initial searches were conducted in March 2022 and the final manual searches were conducted in March 2023.

In addition to electronic and manual searches, the websites of 11 funding organisations (listed in Table 2) were reviewed to obtain information on current funder approaches to post-award management. The funders (listed in Table 2) were chosen to incorporate a range of geographical regions, funder sizes and monitoring and reporting approaches. The websites were reviewed between March and October 2022, with updated review in February 2023. The dates the websites were accessed and links to the web pages searched are shown in Table 2.

Study selection process

Records identified through database and manual searches were exported with citation, titles, and abstracts into Endnote 20 (Clarivate, UK). Duplicates were removed using the EndNote duplication function and manually. Records were divided into two groups to screen titles and abstracts against the eligibility criteria. Each group was independently screened by two authors (AJBJ and KF), with the lead author (KC) screening all records. Any disagreements between authors regarding the decision to include or exclude were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached. Full texts were retrieved for all records that were agreed to be included at this stage. Where full texts could not be retrieved, access to full texts was requested from the University of Southampton Library Services. Two authors (KC and AJBJ) screened all the full texts of records, and if agreement to include or exclude was not reached the third author (KF) was consulted to arbitrate.

Extracting, cataloguing, and summarising data

A structured data extraction form was created in Microsoft Excel and piloted using five eligible records. Following team discussions, the form was revised before formal extraction began. The lead author extracted the data for each record. Extraction fields (shown in Box 1) included: (i) study identifiers, (ii) study characteristics, (iii) details on post-award management processes, (iv) descriptions of unnecessary effort or need for improvement, and (v) descriptions of any previous solutions or recommendations from authors.

An additional data extraction form was created for information on the current post-award management practices of funders, as obtained from their websites. The lead author extracted data from 11 websites in total, with the relevance of all information checked by all authors. The extraction fields are shown in Box 1.

Extracted information on specific processes, requirements and tasks was analysed thematically, whereby similar processes were categorised and the resulting categories represented the main components of the post-award management processes. Each category was then ordered according to its frequency in the literature (i.e., the number of citing records) to give an idea of the effort involved. In adaptation of a method used by Glonti et al. to explore the roles and tasks of journal reviewers,²⁴ extracted information relating to the purpose of post-award management was collated and used to compose common purpose-related statements (“The purpose of post-award management is …”). To do this, all relevant information was extracted into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet by KC. Subsequently, information was coded into common statements and similar statements were categorised into overarching themes and ordered by frequency, again based on the number of citing records. Finally, extracted information relating to unnecessary effort or need for improvement in post-award management was summarised for each publication and thematically categorised according to the component of post-award management (e.g., research impact assessment) the information was relevant to. This information, along with any information on previous solutions or authors’ recommendations, was used to inform broad recommendations for funders and HEIs.

The information obtained from funder websites was extracted into and collated in Microsoft Excel and used to draw out the main points of variation in how funders approach post-award management. This included comparison of reporting requirements and the frequency of reporting, use of digital systems for award management, funder policies, resources and evidence of support.

Selection of records of evidence

The search strategy is depicted in Figure 1. Database searches yielded 2731 eligible records. Duplicate records were removed, and of the remaining 2117 records, 1926 records were excluded through title and abstract screening for not having met our eligibility criteria. Following full text screening of the remaining 191 records, a further 144 records were excluded (due to being too broad (n=38), out of the scope (n=100), or the full texts could not be retrieved (n=6)), which left 47 records to be included in data extraction. Manual searches identified a further 4 eligible records, giving a total of 51 records that were ultimately included in the review. Following peer review, we also included an additional record: a professional development framework for research managers and administrators in the UK (Table 3), bringing the total number of records to 52.

Figure 1. PRISMA flowchart of the search strategy used to identify records and relevant web information on the post-award management and reporting of funded research.

Characterising the literature

Just over half of the records on post-award management and reporting consisted of primary research studies and reviews (27 records; 51%). Research included mixed-methods studies, observational studies, case studies, evaluations (prospective and retrospective), needs assessments and computational models. The remaining 25 records (48%) were non-research (e.g., opinion pieces and blogs) or included reports, results of pilots (e.g., of funding programmes and grant management systems) and a professional development framework for research managers and administrators. Where research fields were specified, most were related to health and clinical research (19; 37%), with less represented fields including agricultural and life sciences (2; 4%), social research (1; 2%), the arts (1; 2%) and the study of research administration (1; 2%). The remaining records were deemed widely generalisable, as they were not aimed at any specific research field or type of research funding (24; 46%). Records were predominantly from the USA (21; 40%) and the United Kingdom (18; 35%), followed by Europe (3; 6%), Africa (3; 6%), South Asia (3; 6%) and the Middle East (1; 2%).

All records described processes relevant to post-award management; however, there was significant variation in the terminology used by authors (Box 2), with most frequent terms including ‘grant management’, ‘monitoring’, and ‘monitoring and reporting’. In terms of the organisational level, half of the records (26; 50%) focused ‘externally’ and described the tasks and information requirements (e.g., progress reports) that funders or other sponsors external to HEIs request on funded awards. In contrast, only 10 records (19%) focussed on the HEI side of the process by describing the administrative and technical operations involved in the internal set up of awards (e.g., financial approvals, staff hiring) and the tasks related to compliance and assurance reporting (e.g., data management, preparing audit reports). In almost a third of the records (16; 30%), authors explored both the funder and HEI sides of the process, describing mechanisms relevant to both.

Collating and summarising data

Table 3 includes a summary of the 52 records and the key information extracted from each record. In line with eligibility criteria, all records provided information on post-award management processes. The majority (44 papers; 85%) also referred to the types of stakeholders involved, of which 30 different types were identified and the ‘researcher/principal investigator’ was the most frequently mentioned (20 publications; 38%). Twenty-eight records (54%) also provided information on digital systems used by funders and HEIs to support award management and reporting; in these, we captured 37 systems/initiatives in total.

Understanding the process

To help simplify the complex process of post-award management and gauge the level of effort that may be involved, the processes, tasks and reporting requirements extracted from records were simplified into a list of ‘items’, and divided into 14 categories (representing the components of the post-award management process (see Table 4)). Items include any processes, considerations or tasks also handled by non-research HEI staff, such as research managers, finance and administrative support staff.²⁵ Based on the number of records citing items in each category, the top five categories were: Award-set up, compliance and close-out, Financial management and financial reporting, Progress reporting, End-of-grant reporting, and Digital tracking of outputs, outcomes, and impacts.

Understanding the effort

Based on Table 4, for HEIs the most post-award effort is likely to be around the set up and close-out of research awards. This includes the duties of researchers, RA staff and finance departments, and any other stakeholder involved in supporting the processes associated with these post-award stages. Table 4 presents the processes, tasks and information requirements that could be involved, of which 29 items were related just to Award set up, compliance, and close-out. As an example, some of these are tasks related to providing ‘assurance’ to funders,^14,26 and include due diligence, internal auditing, and reviewing award Terms and Conditions (T&Cs). Others include considerations for funder policies, such as compliance with Open Access of study data, governance, and record retention. Financial management and financial reporting also involve many tasks (17 items; Table 4) required for funder assurance,²⁶ and these include monitoring award balances, managing Payroll, reporting expenditure for contracted services, and producing financial statements.

Reporting is another major focus of post-award effort, based on all the information that may be required for Progress and End-of-Grant reporting (Table 4). We found 22 items associated with Progress reporting which refer to specific information requirements for report contents (such as the ‘project goals and objectives’, the ‘overall progress’, ‘milestones and deliverables’, and ‘changes to work plan’) and 15 items associated with End-of-grant reporting (Table 4), which notably include content such as a ‘Plain English summary’, an ‘impact statement’, and ‘post-grant plans’. Some information, such as ‘outputs’, ‘achievements’, and ‘Intellectual Property’, can be requested in both types of report and can also be required for Digital tracking of outputs, outcomes, and impacts (Table 4) on research platforms such as Researchfish.²⁷ Of note, other categories of reporting that add to the overall effort for researchers include In-person and informal reporting (6 items) and Performance reporting (5 items) (Table 4). The former may apply to any project and typically involve researchers presenting their progress to programme officers during site visits, or delivering additional information to funders (e.g., on impact activities) via surveys or interviews. Performance reporting on the other hand is more specific to research involving participants (e.g., clinical trials) and involves the reporting of participant data, such as enrolment and recruitment figures, as well as the outputs and outcomes of these studies (e.g., in compliance with funder clinical trial transparency policies).²⁸

Understanding the purpose

In an effort to better understand the value of post-award management and reporting, and why organisations request information from researchers and HEIs throughout and beyond the award period, relevant information from records was collated into common purpose-related statements (i.e., “The purpose of post-award management is …”) (Table 5). In total, 57 common purpose-related statements were written from collation of data and then thematically grouped into 14 categories of purpose (Table 5) and arranged in a descending order of frequency (based on the number of citing records). Based on this analysis, the most common reasons for needing a post-award management process were: Research impact assessment (14 records) (e.g., “To understand what works in research and leads to impact”), Compliance (12 records) (e.g., “To comply with local legislation and the institutional rules that govern research”), Accountability to sponsors, volunteers and the public (12 records) (e.g., “To satisfy project sponsors and commissioners”), Funder programme development and planning (10 records) (e.g., “For funders to identify gaps where future funding may be needed”), and Ensuring responsible research conduct (9 records) (e.g., “To maintain integrity and ethics in research”). Less common but notable reasons included Securing future funding for researchers (8 records) (e.g., “To maintain funding support and advocate for the need for further research”) and Promoting and protecting the reputations of institutions and researchers (6 records) (e.g., “To promote the profiles of projects and researchers”).

Identifying and addressing the issues

To identify which specific area(s) of post-award management and reporting may be creating perception of unnecessary effort or need for improvement through solutions/interventions (e.g., new methods of information collection, administrative support), relevant information was extracted from publications and summarised in Table 6. We identified 29 records (55%) reporting unnecessary effort or issues in post-award management, including recommendations or solutions for addressing these issues. These findings were summarised for each record and the summaries categorised based on the area of post-award management (Table 6). The six emerging categories were: Supporting researchers with tasks; Research impact assessment; Data management and accessibility; Reporting and digital tracking of outputs, outcomes, and impacts; Monitoring and evaluation strategies; and Award set up. Out of these, issues were most frequently found in ‘Supporting researchers with tasks’ (7 records), ‘Research impact assessment’ (6 records), and ‘Data management and accessibility’ (5 records). Notably, a generalised category, ‘Bureaucracy in research’, summarised a government-comissioned report covering issues across multiple areas of post-award management in the UK.¹⁴

The issues identified not only concern post-award processes, but the culture around these as well. There is a general perception of unnecessary effort and little support in post-award management, and that numerous areas of the process could potentially benefit from tailored solutions (e.g., new systems, resources or streamlined approaches) to reduce burden or add value to research (Table 6).

Supporting researchers with tasks

The need to better support researchers with post-award tasks was frequently cited.^6,7,29–33 This stems from reports of significant workloads, a stressful environment in HEIs and issues in communications and working relationships. Solutions to these depend on individual HEIs and could range from hiring research administrators (RAs) or improving existing RA-researcher working relationships, ensuring these are collaborative and respectful of the different roles in managing and effectively delivering reserach. For researchers, a better balance in administrative workload would in turn free up more time for research – particularly in overwhelmed settings like public HEIs and medical schools. This would also ensure that funder investments primarily cover the research and not grant-related administrative activity, which would translate into timely research and quicker impact on end-users. Investing in RA support should also help with compliance issues (e.g., late reporting and consequent sanctions), which can occur when HEIs are overburdened with grant management tasks or where researchers are not fully aware of the funder requirements. Organising training or onboarding programmes for faculty, or employing research managers with knowledge in compliance, are therefore potentially scalable solutions that could widely apply to different research settings and disciplines. The efficacy of these solutions, and HEI grant management functions in general, could also be monitored and measured with metrics – to identify where more support with grant management and other management issues in research (e.g., ethics, recruitment) are needed.

Research impact assessment

The need to improve methods and culture around research impact assessment (RIA) emerged as another key issue in post-award management.^8,34–38 Despite increased focus on RIA in research, the criteria applied by organisations to measure impact and the methods of gathering award data for RIA may need improvement. Funders are urged to develop better RIA guidelines and address gaps in their frameworks, such as by building on standard output-based metrics (e.g., number of publications) with qualitative examples of impact activities. There is also a need for transparency as to how impact reports may affect the researchers, and to ensure that research assessments include some participation of research end-users. Focus on non-academic impact, and to evaluate the complete research lifecycle, are also encouraged for demonstrating the impact of research on priority setting and funding decisions. At the same time, organisations are urged not to over-focus on impact reporting to allow more time for the research and improve the impact of research itself. To that end, recognising the value of sharing and re-using research data were also suggested, which would help towards developing common systems, taxonomies and methods of data curation for RIA. Such efforts should be collaborative and maximise the value of existing digital platforms (e.g., Researchfish) to ensure completeness and quality of the impact data reported in these. Where needed, funders should also ensure they have the expertise and capacity to effective use these platforms to inform their evaluations and RIA activities.

Data management and accessibility

Commonly reported were issues with the standards and sharing of research data, as well as its curation and management.^39–43 With information requirements increasing, but organisations using different and non-interoperable digital systems to store and access the data, researchers find themselves spending more time on reporting due to having to manually input information into open repositories, tracked platforms, and funder and HEI grant management systems. In turn, issues in the transfer of information between systems can lead to errors and duplication in data, creating further burden to users. As such, there is a need for more efficient bi-directional flow of information between HEI systems and those accessed by others (e.g., research sponsors). These include widespread adoption of data standards and interoperable systems by HEIs, and automated data transfer and grant-linking of outputs. HEIs and funders could also consult data centres and switch to enterprise-wide information and grant management systems, so that all staff are trained and have the access for efficient management of award data.

Reporting and digital tracking of outputs, outcomes, and impacts

Funders asks that researchers report on awards in a variety of methods/formats, from submission of written progress reports to updating online forms (e.g., Researchish) with the outputs and impacts of studies. However, where there is overreliance on technology this reportedly leads to an increase in reporting requirements, with the extra administrative effort created leading to delays in research and completion of research reports.^28,44–46 The need for the information requested is also not always clear, nor are the reasons why funders choose certain reporting strategies over others. Funders could consider what they require as minimum and strive for ‘risk-proportionate’ monitoring, focusing post-award support on those who need it the most (e.g., early career researchers) and being transparent with researchers about how the information they provide is being used. There is also opportunity to ask researchers for feedback at the time of reporting – for instance, to monitor administrative effort in post-award management or learn where researchers require more support (e.g., stakeholder engagement). Resorting to real-time reporting is another solution that could potentially take the pressure off researchers, lead to better information (e.g., examples of impacts) and enable faster funder responses to any issues with research.

Monitoring and evaluation strategies

Increasing effort in research is put into ensuring that funders’ investments are justified and demonstrate sufficient return in terms of performance and impact. However, how funders themselves evaluate and report these may not result in accurate indicators of value and outcomes from research, and will not work equally well across all disciplines and research activities.^47–50 For instance, there is a perceived focus on output-based indicators, such as number of publications, in evaluating performance; however, these will not necessarily correlate with the true benefits of research to health and society. Other factors that are frequently overlooked but may impact the fairness of evaluations include the time lag between outputs and impact (which can be up to 20 years) and administrative burden in the post-award phase. Solutions in the form of improved evaluation strategies have been suggested; for instance, using qualitative indicators of performance or capturing metrics of effort in research and grant management (e.g., “hours of internal administration time”). In developing more equitable and balanced evaluation criteria, funders should also ensure that some groups of researchers (e.g., female investigators) are not disadvantaged, and that performance or research assessments account for unforeseen setbacks to research delivery (e.g., as in the case of Covid-19).

Award set-up

One record described historic issues associated with the set-up of NASA-funded awards; these included significant ‘post-award lag’ in the form of late funding disbursements, a long bureaucratic approvals process, and delay to research.⁵¹ These issues, affecting the Space Science Programme, led to grantees labelling the entire grants process ‘unpredictable’ and further caused them post-award burden in the form of a protracted process of grant renewals. Ultimately, NASA achieved reform to the programme and solutions included simplifying the HEI processes required for approvals and set-up, digitising grant tracking and finance, and standardising forms for employees. Shorter grant renewal periods were also given to those requesting minimal changes to funding requirements, and feedback was sought from researchers to inform improvement discussions with other federal agencies.

Bureaucracy in research

Tickell’s large-scale review of UK’s research bureaucracy identified numerous issues in post-award management.¹⁴ These were relevant to the processes of both government funders and HEIs, and included unnecessarily complex and duplicative assurance and reporting requirements, as well as inefficiency in the use of data systems, and administrative pressure on research activities. The biggest contributor of burden in HEIs was in most cases a long and bureaucratic approvals process, while funders were found to place unnecessary scrutiny on assurance and therefore added reporting requirements. Recommendations to the whole sector included simplifying and harmonising data systems and focusing on proportionality and flexibility in grant processes and research assessment. Funders were especially encouraged to streamline their assurance requirements and the HEI system to share their research and data management practices.

Funder websites

Consulting the websites of funders (Table 2) revealed that all websites included information on post-award management processes, although to varying degrees of detail. Overall, we noted considerable variation in the funders’ approaches to monitoring and reporting: differences included the terminology used to describe post-award processes (e.g., ‘scientific reporting’, ‘project management’), specific reporting requirements (e.g., progress reports) and the frequency of reporting (e.g., annual, quarterly), the type of information requested (e.g, impacts) and where it must be reported (e.g., end-of-grant reports vs platforms), and the digital platforms used to support applications and award management. There were also differences in the level of detail relating to guidance and supporting information for researchers and HEIs (such as policies, justification for requirements and explanations of why information is asked for, how it is used, and who uses it). The main points of variation in practices are outlined in more detail below.

Reporting

Digital systems

Monitoring and evaluation policies

Resources and support

Implications of findings

Managing funded research involves more than the signing of contracts and completion of progress reports. The landscape of post-award processes and conditions for funding is complex and there is no relationship between organisation or award type and the approach to reporting. Cataloguing and summarising the available evidence however allowed us to better understand processes and gauge where most of the effort may lie. We were also able to highlight areas where effort may be perceived as unnecessary and improvements are needed, focusing on solutions and recommendations that are relevant to funders, HEIs, and researchers.

For HEIs, significant effort is needed for compliance and the post-award set up of studies, which involves setting up the conditions for the award, obtaining necessary approvals and arranging timely funding disbursements,⁵⁴ as well as ensuring that the correct infrastructure is in place for responsible and compliant management of finances and research data throughout the award. Notably, research has become increasingly digitalised,⁵⁵ not least because of Covid-19, and HEIs now store vast quantities of research data which they must ensure is accessible, discoverable to others externally and standardised³⁹ for effective sharing and reuse by the research community. However, siloed approaches to managing data – where funders and HEIs all use their own systems – has led to an overwhelming presence of digital platforms, of which 36 were captured in this review alone and most of which lack interoperability, resulting in duplication of effort for users.⁵⁶ Although numerous collaborative initiatives^39–41 (such as Jisc and Current Research Information Systems-Institutional Repositories (CRIS-IR)) now provide HEIs with solutions for better system interoperability and data sharing with funders, they have yet to be standardised across the research sector¹⁴ and there is still room for reducing manual effort in and improving the transfer of grant-linked research data between systems. Moreover, while HEIs are encouraged to engage with specialised data services to improve the accessibility and reuse value of the data they hold, evidence that funders also engage with these services seems to be lacking⁴⁰ and inconsistency in how funders themselves use technology for tracking research outputs, outcomes, and impacts may explain why research data is still not being efficiently shared across sectors,²⁸ perpetuating unnecessary effort and research waste for users.

Importantly, too many digital sources of data can also affect funders’ abilities to perform research impact assessments (RIA),^57,58 which in today’s ‘accountability climate’, are crucial for demonstrating that research impact is ‘measurable’ (e.g., resulting in new policy or technology) and for the continued support of the funders’ research programmes.^34,58,59 While the specific reporting requirements of funders may vary, we found they consistently request that researchers anticipate and report on the impacts of the research they fund. Moreover, the reported information must be relevant and updated after study completion, and as such tends to be collected frequently and using multiple methods, including progress reports, end-of-grant reports, impact statements, and online submissions to tracked impact platforms (such as Researchfish). However, research has shown that having a ‘plethora’ of data sources available to funders for RIA does not mean that assessments are always useful to funders, and there remains no consensus on RIA frameworks, or the meaning of ‘impact’.^35,36,58,60 This brings into question the end value of impact reporting to stakeholders, and of adding more effort to this activity on both sides of the award.⁵⁸ For instance, while there is evidence that new frameworks and tools for capturing broader impact data are being developed,⁸ the ‘value add’ of these versus the costs (in terms of money and effort) should be also considered to avoid placing unnecessary burden on routine funding operations or on the delivery of research activities.

Researchers already report struggling with routine reporting requirements,⁶¹ as well as the multiple systems used to track research data and having to manually link study outputs with the identifiers of research awards.³⁹ With respect to the accuracy of the data reported, some argue there is still room for improvement³⁴ and for funders and HEIs this may mean training researchers in ‘impact literacy’⁶² or explaining more clearly the type of impact information they should be reporting. The need for certain types of reporting, such as progress reports, and the need to include impact data in these reports is also up for debate, as it is suggested that funders mostly rely on end-of-grant reports or tracked platforms to collect data for retrospective analyses of the overall and long-term impacts of studies.⁵⁸ Indeed, we found that not all funders require progress reports of researchers, and reducing effort in this area may therefore mean giving researchers more autonomy as to how they update funders on the progress of their awards – for instance, allowing them to report in real time or through more direct communication channels with funders.⁸

Responsibilities and support

A lot of the post-award effort discussed in this work is shared between researchers and many other staff within funders and HEIs, who help coordinate and deliver the complicated post-award management process.^63,64 However, we found that specific responsibilities for requirements, and the level of support offered to researchers in HEIs, depends on availability of research management and administrative (RMA) infrastructure (such as availability of RAs) and other factors in institutional set up.^{6,7,29–32,65} As such, while certain award tasks, such as negotiation of contracts and hiring, can be delegated to relevant HEI departments (such as Human Resources and Finance) the level of support offered for other activities – such as review and approval of research operations, managing direct information requests and reporting – is not always clear due to differences in HEI facilities, resources, and internal funding. In addition, RMA appears to heavily vary by country,^65–67 and even where it is readily available (such as in dedicated ‘grant offices’ or ‘post-award offices’³) a ‘systematic problem’ of administrative burden and issues with compliance is still being reported,⁶⁸ with issues stemming from factors such as overburdened central offices,³¹ poor leadership,⁴² inadequate training,^30,65 and ineffective relationships between researchers and administrators.²⁹ The concern therefore is that not having the needed support for post-award tasks may affect the timely delivery of the research and reduce its impact, as well as return on the funders’ investments. As such, adoption or improvement of RMA and grant support functions in HEIs may be necessary, with the onus then on governments and funders to deliver the infrastructure and training required,⁶⁹ investing in better research support to fund better quality research.⁷⁰

Availability of evidence

There is evidence that strategies to improve funding systems now include efforts to optimise grant management processes^{15–17,47,71,72}; however, as a research area, we believe that the post-award phase may still be in its formative stage. Evidence on post-award practice is limited in scale, robustness and focuses on interventions (e.g., training, alternative mechanisms) compared to topics like grantsmanship and peer review,^11,73,74 and the literature aimed at researchers is mostly on improving the quality of grant applications, and not on what happens post-award or improving post-award skills (such as writing of progress reports⁷⁵).

Most literature in the post-award space also focuses on research impact assessment (RIA) and tends to be high-level, exploring RIA frameworks and strategies in isolation of the reporting that funders require (see Refs. 59, 76 for examples). We found only six publications^8,34–38 that linked RIA back to the funders’ methods of information collection, and which considered the feasibility of funders being able to collect certain types of data (e.g., qualitative impact data) for the purpose of monitoring and RIA activities. These publications were useful as they showed how some solutions for funders (e.g., improving the accuracy of impact data) may affect individual reporting requirements (e.g., the need for telephone interviews with researchers) and the implications on effort for the evaluators and researchers directly involved in reporting.⁸ However, literature focusing just on how research is monitored by funders is sparser, and a large proportion of information had to be gathered either directly from funder websites or funding reports, or from publications and theses on award management systems. Much of the evidence on perceived unnecessary effort in post-award management was also gained from grey literature (e.g., opinion pieces³⁷), with little observational data available, such as from faculty interviews and surveys with staff (as in Ref. 29).

Ultimately, we believe the reason for the lack of research in monitoring and reporting is simple: that feeding back to funders on research that has already been funded is generally seen as well-justified and less onerous than applying for funding or undergoing grant application review. For instance, we found that no record argued against funders needing to oversee their research investments in general, and the literature instead provided a catalogue of reasons why monitoring research is important to numerous stakeholders within and beyond academia. As such, despite how researchers may experience the effort that goes into managing research and complying with funders’ requirements, we and others believe they are still likely to see this effort as a ‘necessary burden’ in funding, which will seldom deter them from applying for funding or continuing working in research.³

Nevertheless, it is important to raise awareness of any unnecessary effort or issues with practices that have been accepted in the past but are now impacting on efficiency in funding processes or today’s research culture. To that end, the research sector will benefit from this review of previous work, and more exploratory research,⁴² independent reviews,¹⁴ needs assessments³³ and systematic comparisons of practices. Notably for funders and HEIs, strategic changes should focus on ‘grant implementation’, ‘in-grant management’, and ‘digital platforms’,¹⁴ and the success of any future interventions (whether it is guidance and training or integration of new systems) should be prospectively evaluated (such as in Ref. 77) or followed up to determine the long-term effects as the research sector evolves and new burdens arise. Continuing to capture ‘effort’ and the experiences and perceptions of stakeholders is also crucial going forward, and in our opinion such assessments could complement the development of administrative ‘indicators’⁴⁷ to appraise where effort in post-award management is concentrated, assess its end value to research, and identify areas for further improvement.

Recommendations for funders and institutions

We have drawn on the evidence of common issues and potential solutions in post-award management (Table 6) to inform key recommendations for funders and HEIs. We believe these recommendations will be relevant to many funders internationally and could facilitate effective future changes to reduce unnecessary effort in research¹⁴ or identify where more research is needed to inform feasible opportunities for improvement in post-award management.

Recommendations for funders

Recommendations for HEIs

Recommendations for both funders and HEIs

Limitations

The broad nature of the topic and the breadth of terminology used to describe post-award management in the literature made screening for relevant papers more challenging than initially anticipated. Having to also manage a large number of citations and employ strict criteria for eligible literature, it is therefore possible that some relevant articles and resources will have been missed. Nevertheless, the literature sample we obtained contained more research data than anticipated and provides the key information to appraise the landscape of post-award management. We attempted to capture current funder practices as accurately as possible but acknowledge that, our funder sample is small and predominantly in the biomedical/health space, and second, and that funders’ websites will not necessarily capture every operational nuance and policy regarding their post-award practices. It also needs mentioning that research practices are constantly changing, and there is therefore a limit to how much current detail on practices can be obtained without consulting funders or HEIs themselves (for instance, as done in Ref. 78). Finally, we note that the findings of the review and especially any assessments of ‘effort’, should not be seen as reflective of all real-life experiences in research; the perspectives of researchers on funding and post-award management will vary and we have recently shown this when interviewing researchers in the UK.⁶¹