Large-scale system for online grant applications, back-office processing and holder management including salary, grant and expense payment integration with financial software.

https://e-gap.royalsoc.ac.uk/
The external front end system is open to any person to make applications

		Login page	Application form	Reporting	Award holder payments

The Royal Society(1) provides a variety of grants, sometimes in conjunction with sponsors and partners, to scientists and others both in the UK and overseas(2). These grants range from one off payments for as little as £75 to 10-year research grants of more than £900,000 over the life of the grant. The number of grant schemes varies with time as new grant schemes are added and some existing schemes replaced.

The current grant application, peer review, allocation, payment and monitoring process has primarily been a manual one with a flow of paper documents. Large amounts of paper are generated and filing and control is a manual process. Traditionally schemes have been the responsibility of different sections and the systems for application and monitoring have varied accordingly.

The Royal Society decided to begin automating the majority of its grant application, processing and payment systems. The electronic Grant Application and Processing (e-GAP) system's objectives were to develop a replacement of the complete processes from application to award holder management and payment with the minimum of paper input, messages and reports.

BOCC successfully demonstrated to The Royal Society our ability to provide web-browser based services and existing online secure systems. In particular, BOCC's comprehensive knowledge of networking and the Internet provided for an integrated response from a single vendor.

On award of the contract, BOCC developed a formal specification for development of the system and launch of a pilot scheme, Industry Fellowships, which is relatively low-volume and thus a good test for the new system. Existing grant application systems were researched to build on best practice already available and to ensure consistency in approach. BOCC advised on methods for data transfers between the Royal Society and BOCC and it was decided to use a separate Internet-facing and internal systems with replication to ensure high availability to all types of user. BOCC developed a modular system so that further schemes (grants, other fellowships, international exchanges, etc) could be added in the future with the minimum of effort.

The design had to cater for a very wide range of browsers, operating systems, access speeds and match existing visual identity standards. The design also had to complement the existing main website, be extendable to other systems in the future and ensure that users could navigate through the process with as little confusion as possible. Elements were tested externally by potential future users and their feedback incorporated into the system during development.

e-GAP was launched on time and to budget.

Since launch 20 further schemes have been added to e-GAP up to January 2005.

e-GAP has begun to provide a centralised management facility for all award schemes for the Royal Society. The standardisation of schemes and the processing of holders has provided benefits to administration tasks.

Applicants, their referees, approvers and the Royal Society are able to print well-formatted PDF versions of the complete application together with any files uploaded by the applicant such as project descriptions that may contain photographs, charts, other images and complex formatting.

Three additional schemes have since been implemented and launched. The import of all existing research appointment fellows has been completed and their management and payments are all undertaken using e-GAP.

The external Internet-facing components are hosted on the Royal Society's dedicated servers at BOCC. The document and database replication transfers are undertaken using a virtual private network between BOCC and the Royal Society network. The internal components and certain sensitive data exist on the Royal Society's internal servers.

The system utilises Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Macromedia ColdFusion Application Server(3), ActivePDF Server(4) and Microsoft Internet Information Server as key technologies. The system integrates with email servers and the existing legacy financial system.

In 2004, e-GAP was extended to include an electronic publications (e-Pubs) system that is fully integrated with the e-GAP technologies and data.

Since autmun 2005, the servers and system have been completely maintained by the Royal Society.

The external site uses SSL technology(5) to encrypt data passed between the user's web browser and the server for privacy. All user access and data validation activity is undertaken on the server, minimising the requirements for the user's browser and computer and thus making the ability to apply for awards available to as wide a cross-section of users as possible.

Pages output to browsers are Extensible HyperText Markup Language 1.0(6) and Cascading Style Sheets 2.0(7) compliant.

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