Texas Southern University Streamlines Submissions

Challenge

Texas Southern University’s research activity has grown significantly over the past decade; what was once a 3-person Office of Research has expanded to a 12-person Division of Research and Innovation. Even in the past few years, the R2-designated university’s research expenditures increased from $12.1 million in 2022 to $19.2 million in the first half of 2026 alone, while research funding increased by approximately 22% in the same period.

Prior to 2020, the Office of Research relied on paper records and forms to manage proposals, a time-consuming process for both PIs and administrators that presented a higher risk of errors and more opportunities for bottlenecks to form. While the COVID-19 pandemic forced the team to adopt email transactions, these disconnected electronic submission and review workflows could not fully resolve existing pain points.

At the time, the Office of Research only had one project coordinator managing electronic submissions that still relied on paper documentation, including almost 100 proposal submissions every year. Even with email submission processes in place, submissions, follow-ups, and responses could easily take days, while some were inadvertently lost in people’s inboxes.

“As we thought about building out the team, there was a need to improve our infrastructure. Submitting 93 proposals on your own, especially manually, is a lot of work.”
Assistant Vice President of Research and Innovation Initiatives
Division of Research and Innovation

Already-busy faculty members had less time to focus on proposal development because a majority of their time was split between submissions and their responsibilities as educators. Without a built-in tracking system, administrators also could not easily monitor submissions, signatures, queuing, and other stages of a proposal’s lifecycle, making it difficult to identify bottlenecks or gather data for reporting.

“For the faculty members, the goal was to make things easier, to streamline processes. They’re already working in the community, doing public service in their field, and reviewing proposals in addition to teaching. We had to make the research component easier and decrease the heavy lifting that was required.”
Vice President for Research and Innovation
Division of Research and Innovation

In 2022, the Office of Research underwent several changes to help improve research administration and pave the way for continued expansion. The department was officially relaunched as the Division of Research and Innovation and received additional financial and faculty support, including its first-ever Vice President of Research and Innovation.

Solution

When the newly inaugurated VP of Research and Innovation asked staff what additional resources they needed, the resounding answer was an electronic research management system. After some consideration, Cayuse was selected as the university’s vendor of choice.

“We had looked at [other vendors], but I suggested Cayuse mainly because I looked at other universities, big and small, and they were successful with it.”
Program Coordinator II, Pre-Award Services
Division of Research and Innovation

The decision to pursue a Caysue implementation was largely driven by a few factors. For one, the Division of Research and Innovation is broken into multiple units — including pre-award, post-award, and research compliance — and the team ultimately wanted a software platform like Cayuse that could eventually support and connect everyone.

The second factor in their decision was positive word of mouth. Members of the team were familiar with Cayuse from the company’s presence at conferences, and had seen how peers used Cayuse’s electronic system to successfully process proposals.

With this in mind, the department implemented the Cayuse Platform and Sponsored Projects to help manage proposal submissions, as well as Fund Finder for seeking grant opportunities thanks to its convenient search features powered by GrantForward.

Results

Since the Cayuse implementation finished in September 2025, faculty and administrators have been very positive about their new electronic management system. Overall, the software has helped to simplify submissions and other administrative workflows, improve and establish processes, increase accountability and collaboration, track data, and facilitate growth all backed by a responsive support team and vendor that acts as a professional partner.

Saved time and effort

The most immediately noticeable improvement was the way in which Cayuse provided streamlined workflows for PIs and administrators. Transmittals formerly sent via email are now processed entirely within an electronic system with Sponsored Projects, and where handoffs could previously become lost in inboxes, stakeholders now receive system notifications as soon as action is required on their part.

This means that both administrators and PIs are saving a significant amount of time on tasks that formerly consumed a large part of their workday, enabling them to focus on other essential work and move more proposals through the system, faster.

Better defined processes

Because many stages of the proposal lifecycle were previously managed by single staff members, the department had not standardized some of their processes as the individuals in those roles already knew exactly what was required of them.

However, Cayuse’s configurable workflows encouraged the team to establish well-defined processes that could be set within the software, helping to scale up operations and reduce confusion from other stakeholders and new hires.

More accountability

The department’s new Cayuse systems allow for transparent, role-dependent access to project statuses and information. Stakeholders who previously relied on email requests for updates can now log in to the Cayuse Platform and easily see who owns a task and where it stands.

This not only enforces more individual accountability, but also identifies opportunities for continued process improvements or additional resource allocation if bottlenecks arise.

Increased collaboration

With everything entered and managed within a single submission system, administrators have also seen an increase in collaboration between PIs and other faculty.

Sending a proposal for feedback no longer requires email outreach or lengthy preparation. Instead, PIs can share their proposal with others directly and receive quick feedback, all without leaving the platform.

Improved data management

Because every step of a proposal’s lifecycle stays within the Cayuse Platform, notes, auditable histories, and essential data can be easily referenced or gathered for reporting.

Form questions within Cayuse can be linked to specific indicators, allowing leadership to establish and monitor KPIs for their unit. At a glance, they can determine how submissions are performing and make determinations like where additional funding will be most effective.

Growth enablement

Now that many of their processes have been simplified and streamlined, administrators and leadership can focus more on expanding their research program and work that furthers Texas Southern University’s mission.

“Cayuse is allowing us to reconsider who we hire now because we can kind of build out the team… Now that proposal submission is manageable, when we rethink adding a new team member, we can reimagine what that looks like.”
Assistant Vice President of Research and Innovation Initiatives
Division of Research and Innovation

In the time since Cayuse was implemented, research funding requests have grown by around 45%. In the entirety of 2025 — the last full year without Cayuse — the department saw a total of 84 proposals submitted. Now, in just the first six months of 2026, the department has already processed 93 submissions. Based on these metrics, the team predicts a 60% total increase by the end of the year.

More time back that was previously spent on submission processing also means that faculty members can spend more time focused on teaching and community outreach, while the Research and Innovation team can think more creatively about how they would like to expand their department. Instead of hiring another administrator to manage submissions, they can look for new grant writers or proposal developers to live up to the “innovation” in the department’s new title.

Support from industry experts

All of these benefits are backed by effective support provided by Cayuse. The team has been happy to find that any questions they’ve had or issues they’ve encountered during and after implementation received timely and helpful responses from Cayuse support specialists with research industry experience.

Cayuse’s annual Connect Conference has also provided welcome opportunities to engage with peers and learn more about industry topics and future roadmaps for their Cayuse software.

Overall, they are happy with their choice to implement Cayuse, and look forward to bringing more units of their department into the Cayuse ecosystem.