RCUK Research Outcomes System
The first ROS collection period has now ended.
Grant holders can still access the system at any time to add outcomes arising from their research grants - they do not need to wait until the next collection period.
The Research Outcomes System (ROS) is a new web-based system for submitting research outcomes to four of the Research Councils – AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and EPSRC. The ROS should be used by these Research Council grant holders to input outcomes information about their research. The remaining three Research Councils will continue to use their existing alternative systems.
The first collection period for ROS ended on 30 April 2012.
The intention is for ROS to be used as a record for all outcomes arising from grants from the four Research Councils listed above. The final report form must still be submitted in the normal way but PIs will not be required to include outcomes information as this data will be taken from ROS for all evaluation purposes. In due course the final report form will be redesigned, but RCUK expect PIs to start reporting in ROS immediately. ROS will ask PIs to submit outcomes every year between January and March although outcomes can be submitted any time throughout the year, as and when they arise.
Already submitted a final report?
If a grant holder has already submitted outcomes via the final report, RCUK will be inputting this into ROS shortly. Once the information from the final report has been transferred into ROS the grant holder will be notified by the individual Research Council. The grant holder should then supplement ROS with any further outputs that have arisen since the final report was submitted.
Current grants
Outcomes should be submitted for grants that are currently in ROS and that started more than 12 months ago. The grant holder should use ROS to submit any outcomes which have arisen to date from the grant, e.g. publications. If no outcomes have arisen so far this should be noted with a brief explanation in the relevant box, found under ‘New outcome’.
PIs on maternity leave
If a grant holder is on maternity leave, the departmental administrator should notify Nicola Donkin in R&IS (n.donkin@sheffield.ac.uk), who will complete the ‘no outcomes to submit’ box on their behalf.
Which grants need to be completed?
Information needs to be input into ROS for all grants which have ended since 2006, including any grants which are active. The list of grants supplied by RCUK to the University only listed one grant per PI; therefore, if a PI has multiple grants these will not be listed on the spreadsheet supplied to departments. When a PI logs in to ROS they will see the full list of their grants. RCUK have also contacted all PIs directly regarding the system, and sent a reminder about the deadline last week.
NERC
NERC has also decided to adopt ROS from 2013 onwards. Until then NERC will work with its grant holders to implement this change and ensure user requirements are identified and met.
Data already submitted to MRC/STFC e-Val
RCUK are working to share data between ROS and MRC/STFC e-Val. If, in their MRC e-Val or STFC e-Val return, grant holders reported one or more instance of further funding with at least one of AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC or ESRC, as an interim measure they are aiming to transfer the publications that were submitted in the return over to ROS, so that they do not need to be entered a second time. All relevant data should be present in ROS from Friday 16 March. When logging into the ROS, a message will be displayed indicating that there are publications to review, and grant holders can assign the appropriate publications to the correct awards. The teams will continue to work on streamlining the interoperability of the system across all of the output types.
Sanctions
At present there are no sanctions for non-completion, although MRC’s equivalent e-Val does now state possible sanctions for non-compliance.
Logging in
You can log-in to the ROS using your Je-S username and password. You will be able to view all of the grants on which you are the named PI. You can either add single outcomes for each grant, or use a spreadsheet template to add multiple publication outcomes.
Delegating this task
PIs may give permission to a delegate to complete the information on their behalf. To do this they will need to log in to the ROS, click the 'Manage delegates' tab at the top and follow the instructions.
User guides
Comprehensive user guides, including video walk-throughs, can be found in the 'User guides' section of the system. Video tutorials are also available on YouTube.
Further information can be found on the RCUK website, including a set of FAQs at the bottom of the page.