Project Information

Bid Title

RFP02102026 - Electronic Research Administration (e-RA) System

Issuing Agency

University of Arkansas

Location

Arkansas

Published Date

Feb 18, 2026

Closing Date

Mar 6, 2026

Government Level

State & Local

Status

Closed

Ref. #

RFP02102026

Original Source

Join to Access Full Details

Bid Inquiries

Join to Access Full Details

Bid Documents

Join to Access Full Details

Project Description

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) RFP Document Standard Terms & Conditions (Signature Sheets) Notice of Pre-Proposal Meeting	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

Commodity Codes

• NAICS 541611Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
• NAICS 541690Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services

* Disclaimer: Government BidHub provides information on bids, RFPs (Requests for Proposals), and RFQs (Requests for Qualifications) solely for convenience and informational purposes. This site is not an official public notice board. For official details, responses, or inquiries, please contact the relevant government agency directly.