- Plan My Research
- Fund My Research
- Manage My Research
- Further My Research
- Resources
- Courses & Other Training
- Kuali Research Training
- Human Ethics - CORE Tutorial
- FAST Training
- Research Account & Expenditure Eligibility
- CITI Program Information
- Conflict of Interest
- Intellectual Property Training
- ORS & The Research Lifecycle
- San’yas: Indigenous Cultural Safety Training
- Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP)
- Research Security - NSF
- Research Security - ISED
- Forms & Documents
- Research Support Sessions
- Core Facility Program
- Research Expertise Engine
- Departments & People
- Research Facilities
- Courses & Other Training
Kuali Upgrade
Background: The Kuali project began in 2004, when a group of US universities and colleges got together to build software that was a better fit for their needs than what traditional software vendors had to offer. Supported by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), and a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the consortium of universities formed a non-profit organization called the Kuali Foundation. The Foundation’s mission was to build better software to serve higher education’s unique needs. Kuali software was free and open source - but technically demanding to bring on-board.
In 2014 the Foundation decided to launch a for-profit company in order to move into the growing world of Software as a Service (SaaS), now known more commonly as 'cloud software'. Kuali has expanded from University financial and research software to also offer products for curriculum and student management, business continuity, and a general purpose forms and workflow system.
SFU's Software: After carefully reviewing the market, SFU chose Kuali to replace end-of-life homegrown software that solely managed back-office data for Research Services and Research Accounting. We knew that Kuali Research, part of the core suite, was in the process of being completely replatformed and updated. However, they weren't ready when we launched in 2024. In response to feedback from users, we asked to be early in the queue to migrate to the new version (new customers have been using it for nearly two years).
In Kuali NextGen we have far more local control over look-and-feel, workflow, and data management. However, we continue to focus on keeping things simple - keeping the amount of information you need to enter down to just what we need to properly manage (and report on) research activities. If you want to read more about other universities that have implemented Kulai, they have a webpage full of stories and videos.
Our current timeline is:
June 2026 - Launch Animal Care management system (now live)
July 16-20 - Admin User Acceptance Testing
July 23-29 - Researcher / approver UAT
July 26 - Last day to submit in the current system (to allow time for approvals)
From this point until the new system is live all proposals and approvals will be managed manually (contact ors@sfu.ca to arrange)
Aug 4-9 - Blackout period - system locked for data migration
Aug 10 - System live
In the fall we will begin migrating Kuali Protocols, our Human Ethics form and database system, into the new suite. By the end of the year all of our software will run on the same database and will have a common look and feel.