The market researchers at ListEdTech recently published their 2024 report on the state of grants management practices and software used in higher education. As always, there’s plenty of interesting data and analysis to help organizations understand the market and their options for grants management vendors.
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at the report’s findings including new insights, industry highlights, and notable changes over the past year.
Findings at a glance
Cayuse remains the market leader for grants management systems among North American higher education institutions of all sizes and funding sources.
Grants management systems remain an essential part of research infrastructure; while implementations are projected to decrease over the coming years, this slowdown can be attributed to the market naturally reaching a saturation point rather than a lack of interest in grants management systems.
As the market reaches a saturation point institutions will need to assess whether their implemented grants management systems are capable of long-term stability and growth, while vendors will need to ensure continued innovation to future-proof their products.
Overall market leaders
Despite changes to the report’s methodology and categorizations (outlined later in this summary) Cayuse once again remains the market leader among individual grants management system vendors, in use at 15% of all included institutions. 
While the percentage of Cayuse’s market share differs in 2024 due to method changes in this year’s report, its position as the top grants management system provider in North America remains unchanged.
Interestingly, many vendors seem to hold a similar market share as in 2023. The report notes that this is likely due to a slowdown in implementations as market saturation increases and organizations settle into their previously implemented solutions. This is also reflected in the report’s market forecast.
Market forecast
When forecasting the future of grant management system implementations using historical data, the ListEdTech Report notes trends across the three main categories: Grants and Financial Systems (Group One in blue), Research Grantee Systems (Group Two in orange), and Financial ERP/Grant Accounting Modules (Group Three in gray).
Implementations have been falling, and are predicted to continue falling, across all three categories, although the Grants and Financial Systems group representing the focus of this report still see an overall higher rate of implementation.
The report notes that this should not be taken as a negative reflection of the industry’s overall health, but rather a natural market evolution such as a decrease in total institutions with no grants management systems implemented (and therefore fewer opportunities for new implementations).
Methods and definitions
This year’s report leveraged data from over 1,200 higher education institutions across North America where Grants Management Systems—defined as both homegrown and vendor-provided systems designed to facilitate the application, approval, reporting, and tracking of grants and grant-related tasks, deadlines, and budgets—are currently in use.
To help narrow the report’s scope, ListEdTech sorted grant systems into three main categories:
- Financial ERP or Grant Accounting Modules designed primarily to manage grant expenditures within the context of an organization’s overall financial operations
- Grantor Systems designed for use specifically by grant sponsors to manage their end of the grant lifecycle, but not for stakeholders within research organizations receiving these grants
- Grantee Systems designed for use specifically by grant recipients and their institutions to manage all facets of grant lifecycles, further broken down into several subcategories:
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- Compliance Systems designed to manage ethical considerations in research involving human subjects (IRB), animal subjects (IACUC), and personal disclosures and conflicts of interest (COI)
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- Facilities Research Systems designed to manage an organization’s sponsored research infrastructure and resources
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- Funding Opportunity Systems designed to help researchers find and secure funding from private and public sources
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- Sponsored Project Management Systems designed to manage the full lifecycle of an organization’s grant and research portfolio
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- Technology Transfer Systems designed to facilitate commercialization and IP resulting from sponsored research
Because the report aims to provide actionable insights for researchers, administrators, and leaders of organizations conducting sponsored research, its analysis focuses exclusively on the use of the third category, grantee systems.
New in the 2024 report
Readers familiar with the 2023 ListEdTech Report may have noticed a few changes in both the metrics and vendors included in the current and historical market share trends. These are the result of a few adjustments to the report’s methodology in 2024, specifically:
- Homegrown grant systems (those designed within a research organization instead of by an outside vendor) have been re-added after their exclusion in the 2023 report
- Some of the products analyzed, including those provided by Submittable, InfoReady, and GrantFoward, have been re-designated grantee systems after previously qualifying for the grantor system or grant accounting module categories
Conclusions
There are a few notable takeaways from this year’s ListEdTech Grants Management Systems Report.
First, Cayuse unquestionably remains the leader among grants management system vendors for North American higher education institutions. Thanks to Cayuse’s SaaS-enabled full research lifecycle solutions, adopters know that their Cayuse grants management solutions like Sponsored Projects can safely integrate with other Cayuse solutions and major ERP software for a reliable, accessible user experience.
Second, while the grants management systems market among North American higher education institutions reaches a saturation point, there is still significant potential for disruption as organizations seek more efficient workflows. Vendors must continue innovating and providing an optimal customer experience; those that fail to do so may see more significant drops in market share after this year’s plateau.
That’s why Cayuse is dedicated to continuously updating our solutions to stay ahead of trends, with user-submitted feedback constantly incorporated in the form of new features. Additionally, we keep our customers first in mind when providing support and customer service, from our first conversations through implementation and continued post-implementation support.
Click here to read the full 2024 ListEdTech Grant Management Systems Report.
