Past Performance Objectives and Outcomes

See details of past performance objectives and outcomes, including full reports for the Federal Research Support Fund (RSF), the Incremental Project Grant (IPG) and Research Security (RS).

Research Support Fund

Find the total Federal RSF grant amounts and allocation per category for the previous five years:

Incremental Project Grant

Investments for 2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 were made in information resources to expand research data storage and security, as well as improve and meet software requirements. For example, commonly used software licenses were purchased for Qualtrics; NVivo and NVivo for Teams; SPSS; MATLAB; STATA SE and made available to all campus researchers. In addition, a new secure server was built and Citrix ShareFile software installed. This combination of hardware and software ensures complete control over the security of the data since it is stored on campus. The Citrix ShareFile further responds to researchers’ information security requirements by enabling a secure connection for their research partners and collaborators around the world to access that data, if required. Finally, a purpose-built research software development pilot was launched to meet the needs of unique research programs.

In 2022-2023, the university focused on enhancing research post-award support that exists centrally and in the faculties and departments by establishing a Research Post-Award (RPA) service. This team helps researchers who hold external awards (i.e., grants and contracts) navigate the various policies, processes, laws and practices associated with research-related expenditures, as established by the university, research sponsors and legislative bodies at the provincial and federal levels. The RPA team allows researchers to channel the time and money they would otherwise spend in post-award administration into their innovative research programs, thereby augmenting their positive transformative impacts on our local, national and global communities.

The 2023-2024 IPG supported two important and much-needed projects in the categories of information resources and innovation and commercialization activities. The latter focused on sensitizing researchers to intellectual property (IP) and commercialization issues and, more importantly, on processes and available support at the university. The second initiative sought to further the replacement of the aging research management software cuResearch, specifically through the development of data pipelines and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for seamless integration, data migration integrity and accuracy preservation.

The 2024-2025 IPG supported five critical projects. Under the information resources category, the areas selected for pressing improvements were: research awards management system (cuResearch/ROMEO), research financial post-award (Research Financial Services) and research analytics platform. Under the innovation and commercialization activities category, the continuation of IP and commercialization education and support was renewed for the second year. Finally, under the facilities renewal category, the animal care facility underwent an animal compliance project entitled “Animal Care Enhancement of Research Capacity”.

Research Security

With the dedicated RS funding, Carleton supported researchers in navigating the international and domestic research partnership landscape, specifically forging and fostering such relationships and initiatives aimed at enabling faculty members, post-doctoral fellows and students to remain at the forefront of innovation and scholarship while safeguarding the research and its outcomes. In year one of this three-year project, partial full-time employees within the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International) were allocated to support Risk Assessment Checklist completion, Risk Mitigation Plan development and Security Clearance submissions. Depending on the context, this work involves a detailed review of planned research activities, conducting due diligence using various tools, referring to internal policies and processes, detailed review of planned research activities, meetings with researchers, and advising and liaising with internal resources. It also includes education and awareness-raising activities such as organizing workshops, preparing training resources and tools, and engaging with law enforcement and other government agencies.