The functions and features most commonly offered by the major higher education research administration vendors (Kuali Research, Huron Research Suite and Cayuse), and the HERM business capability each one supports. These are system functions, not HERM capabilities: HERM describes what an institution does; this page describes what a research administration system does to help it. The finance ERP stays the system of record for the general ledger, payables and post-award costing; it appears here only at award setup and financial status. See also the SIS, financial ERP and HRM functions & features. See the HERM Business Reference Model for the full set of capabilities, or its capability wheel.
Shows which parts of the institution a research administration system supports, where it overlaps other systems, and where it stops.
A function's main HERM home vs others it touches. Features narrow to one capability.
30 HERM capabilities touched: 12 in Research, mostly funding, ethics and integrity, plus contracts, safety and compliance.
Wheel to explore, tree to scan every mapping, CSV or JSON to reuse it.
How this was compiled: three AI assistants (Claude, Perplexity and Grok) were each asked to identify the core functions and features of the major higher education research administration products. Their lists were reconciled into this single set. Treat it as a starting point, not a vendor-verified specification.
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The full hierarchy: areas, functional areas, functions and features, each with its HERM mapping and definition. Select any HERM capability or feature to see its full definition.
Research administration rarely runs on one system. Here the same functions and features are mapped to the applications a fictional Example State University actually runs: a vendor core, add-on modules, third-party products, homegrown tools and spreadsheets. Each link records how well the application covers the feature and its role. HERM coverage is then calculated from those links, not mapped by hand.
Also see this ecosystem as a capability × application matrix or a HERM-to-application flow.
Inner rings: area and functional area. Outer ring: one slice per feature, split into bands when more than one application provides it. Marks outside the ring flag gaps (red) and competing systems of record (violet).
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The executive view. Each bar is the capability’s features, coloured by the best coverage any application gives them. Select a capability for its HERM definition, or an application to see its footprint.
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