The Tri-agencies are developing a new, centralized portal to manage grants and applications. Professor James Danckert attended a stakeholder workshop in December. We talked to him about the plans for the TGMS and how FAUW members can provide feedback.
What is the Tri-agency Grant Management Solution (TGMS) Initiative trying to achieve?
The TGMS Initiative is a project to build a central grant portal for all three agencies, replacing the existing systems, with the aim of creating something more user friendly and modern. Importantly, with this system, you won’t need to re-enter the same information multiple times: for example, publications entered for a CV won’t have to be re-entered for a grant report, and information can be ported over from one agency to another.
What’s the timeline for rolling this out?
The Tri-agencies are in the process of finding a vendor to build the system, and simultaneously engaging in ongoing consultation with stakeholders. They are looking to have demonstrations of the proof of concept by early 2021. Once they start building it, they plan to roll things out pieces at a time, which they acknowledge could pose a communication challenge.
How will the Tri-agencies help faculty members learn this new system?
Once they have the system ready to deploy, they plan to offer training (such as webinars and fake portals for practice) 90 days prior to submission deadlines.
How will this affect the Common CV?
There is a push to replace CCV as part of this. It’s not set in stone, but will be considered.
How can faculty members learn more about the TGMS or provide input?
The Government of Canada website has information and updates about the TGMS initiative.
Norman Marcotte is the Director General of TGMS (he has an NSERC background) and Christine Francoeur is Change Management Lead (her background is CIHR – NSERC) for the whole TGMS process. Christine can be reached at TGMS-SGSTO@cihr-irsc.gc.ca and she is the point person we ought to communicate with.
Faculty members can also reach out to James at jdancker@uwaterloo.ca.
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