Better support for researchers
The Research Administration Strengthening (RAS) Program team is pleased to announce the successful implementation of Research Professional (RP) – an online, searchable database providing the research community with information about national and international funding opportunities, including grants, fellowships and prizes, plus a compendium of worldwide research news for researchers based in Australia.
With the funding pool becoming more competitive nationally, it was important to diversify our funding sources and help connect researchers to more opportunities. RP also automates a number of tasks done manually in the past, such as searching for opportunities and then collating them into newsletters or databases.
Research Services Manager at the Faculty of Engineering, Reeta Kumar, said RP had been useful for finding new opportunities for researchers.
“We used RP extensively to populate our weekly Engineering Research Office Bulletin and found it uncovered many great opportunities for our researchers," Ms Kumar said.
"As part of the implementation process, our office sent an email to all researchers, followed by presentations at the departmental meetings to introduce researchers to the RP system and to show how they can use the system more effectively.
"Now that it has been rolled out to faculty more broadly, we look forward to seeing how it is used and nuanced by individual research staff."
All Australian-based Monash research staff now have access to the tool online, and can search for funding opportunities and access news items at any time. Researchers can also customise and save searches, and set up email alerts for particular funding opportunities.
Program Director, Jane Holt, identified this project as a “tremendous collaborative effort by the Monash Research Office, Faculty Research Offices and eSolutions".
"The support of the research community also directly contributed to the successful introduction of Research Professional at Monash," Ms Holt said.
Find out more about Research Professional as well as the RAS Program and its objectives and initiatives.