RAMP training aims at equipping research support staff with knowledge and tools to better manage externally funded grants. The training covers topics on: Administration, including diary management, minute taking, and travel logistics; Project Management, including risks management, safeguarding, M&E, and the use of tools such as logframes and Gantt charts; and Financial Management, including budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
The increasing administrative and management workload due, in part, to more stringent governance research requirements means Principal Investigators spend over 40% of their time on administrative tasks, which could be more effectively done by dedicated research support staff (sources: Independent Review of Research Bureaucracy and More Time for Science and Less Time for Administration?). In response to our partners’ requests, LSTM and the LIGHT Programme established a three-day Research Administration and Management Programme (RAMP) training for research administrators, managers, and finance officers. The training was based on a needs assessment survey drawn from the SARIMA Professional Competency Framework under three themes: Administration, including diary management, minute taking, and travel logistics; Project Management, including risks management, safeguarding, M&E, and the use of tools such as logframes and Gantt Charts; and Financial Management, including budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. The RAMP course has been run and refined in Liverpool (Sept-Nov 22), Malawi (Mar-23), and Kenya (Jun-23). Read more on the RAMP experiences here and here.