MARS is a new in-house built web application which supports research award management at Oxford. It presents information drawn from financial, HR and research costing systems via an easy-to-use visual user interface, allowing department finance managers and research facilitators an at-a-glance overview of all research projects in their department.
MARS acts as a convenient reference point for all a department’s project-related information; through its presentation of upcoming project dates and its colour-coded budget and expenditure charts it supports pro-active management of spend and deadlines. Overspends, underspends and run rates are clearly indicated. It also provides greater oversight of investigator budgets, overheads and FTE allocation across projects.
The application was built by our Business Platform team working closely with representatives from all four divisions to their requirements. The application has been successfully used by colleagues in the Saïd Business School, Materials, Paediatrics, Clinical Laboratory Sciences and Computer Science, amongst others.
Dr Mark Evans, Senior Administrator, RDM Clinical Laboratory Sciences commented: “I’m really pleased with the MARS system, and have already started using it to great effect - I look forward to seeing future developments.”
A future version of MARS hopes to provide access for investigators to their individual projects.
Guidance is available on the Research Support website. To report a technical issue, please contact your MARS Department User Manager in the first instance, who can relay it on your behalf to mars@it.ox.ac.uk.
