In fiscal year 2014, the US Government had outlays of nearly $600 billion in grants programs, ranging from essential disaster preparedness and homeland security, to world-changing clinical and scientific research. In the past, the grants review process was an expensive, time consuming and inefficient undertaking. Review conferences required vast amounts of travel and discretionary expense spending, while limiting the reviewer pool to only those with the time and will to attend.
But in the past 10 years, the emerging Electronic Grant Review (eGR) process has allowed review elements to be decentralized and web-accessible, reducing costs, effort, time and resources. Today, this process is again poised for major change. Through implementation of transformational cloud technology, federal agencies have the opportunity to once again reengineer grants management.
Leveraging a secure and scalable cloud infrastructure, agencies have a greater avenue to build interactive portals and provide quicker delivery of data to grants programs, making the process more efficient and effective while saving valuable taxpayer dollars in the process.
Read the complete report in the Feb./March, 2015 Homeland Security Today.
Ray Tye is chief operating officer for LCG, Inc., a provider of technology-based consulting services, biomedical research support, grants management, decision analytics, software engineering and IT operations that enhance the transparency, efficiency and empowerment of government programs.