Australian Research Council (ARC)

Research Management System

RMS allows researchers to prepare their ARC applications for funding electronically via the internet. All ARC grant applications are lodged using RMS.

RMS log on

Please note that when the person entering the application onto RMS puts in the RMS ID for another investigator in Section B2 on the form, the information contained in the My Details section for that investigator populates the application. If the other investigator hasn't yet filled in their details under their own ID, the application will not automatically update when they do finally fill it in. You will need to Fetch Client Details again! Hence, it is a good idea to have all investigators update their My Details before filling in the application.

• Electronically submitted application form in RMS
• 1 original of complete application including additional text uploads and signed certification pages and application coversheet delivered to Level 7, 115 Grenfell Street by the internal closing date

RMS Update

Improvements to RMS, Scheduled RMS Outages and the RMS Help Desk

Since the Research Management System (RMS) opened in March this year, the ARC has been improving and extending RMS functionality. The most significant changes are listed below.

Performance and timeout:

• response times have been improved across all areas of RMS;
• performance in specific areas, including the draft proposal budget, has been improved;
• timeout is now based on keyboard/mouse activity rather than server activity (i.e. as long as the user is working in RMS, even if they haven’t saved, the session will remain active); and
• a timeout warning has been added (currently advises user 15 minutes prior to timeout, this will be improved to a countdown in future releases)—please note this warning is only visible while the user is in RMS, if the user swaps to another application he/she will not see the warning until he/she swaps back to RMS.

Access control and account management:

• a help desk has been established (operating in AEST business hours) to assist users with account setup (further information is below).

Draft proposal creation/edit:

• the drop down list in Create Draft Proposal has been expanded to display the full name of a scheme round rather than short name (please note, the short name is used everywhere else);
• functionality to allow re-ordering of person participants on the Draft Proposal Summary has been added (i.e. users can now use the up and down arrows on the person participant summary table, this also changes the order in the form parts below);
• for the Research Support Questions (Parts H1 and H2) applicants are required to upload a PDF of the details instead of directly entering the data into RMS; and

Proposal Budget:

• freeze panes have been added so that budget row and column headers remain visible at all times (please note that this works best in IE7 or Firefox);
• the screen size has been increased so that more columns are visible (i.e. less scrolling);

Please note: further improvements to the proposal budget are being developed

PDF upload and generation: 

• the uploaded PDF name and upload date is now displayed, as well as the ability to open uploaded PDFs from the RMS form;
• if a PDF has not been attached (or uploaded) for a question in RMS a message will be provided in the generated proposal PDF;
• the number of new pages for uploaded PDFs and certification text has been reduced; and
• PDF generation emails are now only sent upon successful completion of a user requested PDF.

Proposal Certification and Submission:

• a warning to advise applicants to open and check form parts to ensure all data is populated from personal details has been added; and

Planned improvements prior to the upcoming round of Discovery Projects:

• further revision and simplification of the proposal budget;
• the enabling of draft proposals to be deleted by proposal owner (the delete function will hide from view rather than actually delete);
• the inclusion Field of Research (FOR) and SEO codes as well as descriptions in online and PDF forms; and
• the development of video tutorials.

Scheduled RMS maintenance outages and restarts

Standard maintenance outages will be scheduled for Wednesday evenings between approximately 7 pm and 9 pm (AEDT). RMS is restarted twice a day at 4 am and 6 pm (AEDT) to assist with system responsiveness and is unavailable for approximately fifteen minutes.

RMS Help

For assistance with RMS, participants should click on the on-line help link (top left of RMS screen). If further assistance is required please contact the RMS Help Desk via an email (describing your problem and providing your RMS details) to rms@arc.gov.au or telephone (02) 6287 6789. Please note that the RMS Help Desk is staffed between 9 am and 5 pm (AEDT), Monday to Friday.

RMS Contacts