The university has created a number of structural divisions to enable it to manage research. Research units constitute collections of staff working in a common research area such as Information Systems, Software Engineering, etc. Research centres are aggregations of research units that roughly correspond to the units of assessment created by the research assessment exercise (RAE). Both research units and research centres are headed by one member of academic staff.
The following forms of research output are used to assess the performance of research units and research centres: publications (journal papers, conference papers, professional articles, books, chapters in books), research grants (submitted and successful), research students (registered, completed). Members of academic staff at the university author publications and submit or hold research grants. A member of staff can author more than one publication and submit/hold more than one research grant. A publication can be authored by more than one member of staff and a research grant can have more than one applicant. Research students are enrolled by an academic department or school and are supervised by one or more members of academic staff. Members of staff may supervise more than one research student.
In terms of research grants, the system needs to record: the title of the grant, the applicant(s)/holder(s), the funding body, the total value of the grant submitted, the total value of the grant awarded, date grant submitted, data grant awarded. In terms of research students, the system needs to record: enrolment number, name of student, academic department, date enrolled, date registered, type of research degree (Mphil, Mphil/Phd, Phd), supervisor(s), date transferred, result of transfer, date examined, result of examination. A minimal set of staff details need to be recorded in the system: payroll number, name, title, department/school.