Research Foundation of CUNY

What Research Foundation of CUNY does

The Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY) is a private, 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation chartered by the State of New York in 1963 to administer sponsored research on behalf of the City University of New York system. RFCUNY operates as CUNY's exclusive fiscal and administrative agent for research, processing $612M in FY 2025 total award activity and supporting approximately 14,000 full and part-time employees across all 25 CUNY campuses. Its scope covers the full sponsored-research lifecycle: pre-award proposal development via the Award Pre-Proposal Support (APPS) program, post-award financial administration, effort certification, subaward management, procurement, payroll, and compliance reporting under federal Uniform Guidance.

RFCUNY's core technology platform is OneRF, an integrated enterprise system powered by Workday that consolidates human resources, payroll, procurement, and grant management functions previously spread across legacy tools such as Contract Manager. OneRF provides real-time dashboards for grants, HR, payroll, and procurement data, and is supplemented by electronic tools including the ACH File Management System, the Event Payment System (capped at $5,000 per transaction and integrated with JPMorgan Chase), a web-based employment and wage verification service, and procurement integrations with Quartzy and Amazon through the OneRF catalog. The platform was refreshed with Workday 2026 Release 1 in 2026 without changes to underlying workflows.

The organization operates on a managed-services revenue model derived from administrative fees on sponsored projects and indirect cost recoveries on federal grants, with no publicly disclosed pricing because services are provided institutionally to CUNY researchers. Go-to-market is essentially internal: direct engagement with CUNY campus grants offices, the CUNY Postdoctoral Association, and PI-facing communications, webinars, and the rfcuny.org website. All customer segments — principal investigators, project employees, postdoctoral researchers, and external partners such as vendors and independent contractors — operate exclusively inside the CUNY ecosystem, making RFCUNY functionally a captive shared-services entity rather than a market-facing business.

Name

Research Foundation of CUNY

Legal name

Research Foundation of The City University of New York

Website

https://rfcuny.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1963

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

5,001–10,000 employees

Short description

RFCUNY is a 501(c)(3) non-profit chartered by New York State in 1963 that administers all sponsored research for the City University of New York, processing $612M in FY 2025 award activity and supporting 14,000 employees across 25 CUNY campuses via its Workday-powered OneRF platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Grant Administration Services: RFCUNY serves as the fiscal administrator for CUNY's research grants, managing $612M in FY 2025 Total Award Activity. Revenue is derived from administrative fees charged on sponsored projects and indirect cost recoveries from federal grants.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

RFCUNY provides sponsored research administration and fiscal management services for the City University of New York (CUNY), serving as the central administrative entity for all CUNY grants and sponsored projects. Its core offering is the OneRF integrated platform (powered by Workday) that unifies human resources, payroll, procurement, and grant management, supplemented by pre-award proposal support, post-award financial administration, compliance training, and electronic payment systems across 25 CUNY campuses.

Product overview

RFCUNY is an administrative services organization supporting CUNY's research ecosystem, not a product company. Its technology offerings consist of internal administrative systems and services for researchers: OneRF (a Workday-powered platform for HR, procurement, and grant management) as the core platform, supplemented by electronic tools including the ACH File Management System for payments, Event Payment System for credit card processing, and Web-based Employment Verification Service. Additional services include the Award Pre-Proposal Support (APPS) program and the CUNY Postdoctoral Association, which provide research funding assistance and postdoc community support respectively. The organization transitioned from legacy systems to OneRF, with Contract Manager maintained as a legacy option.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• OneRF Unified human resources, procurement, and grant management system powered by Workday, providing real-time dashboards for grants, HR, payroll, and procurement data, with integrated workflow capabilities including absence management, time tracking, and case management for CUNY researchers and staff.
• ACH File Management System
• Event Payment System Credit card payment processing system for events, integrated with JPMorgan Chase, enabling CUNY event organizers to accept payments with monthly revenue automatically allocated to RFCUNY projects.
• Web-based Employment and Wage Verification Service Secure online system enabling authorized organizations to verify employment and salary information for RFCUNY project employees for use in loans, housing applications, or other verification purposes.
• Award Pre-Proposal Support (APPS) Pre-award support service helping CUNY principal investigators identify funding opportunities, develop proposals, and navigate grant processes, with access to Pivot-RP and GrantForward databases for funding discovery.

Quantifiable outcome

• $612M in FY 2025 Total Award Activity
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• CUNY (City University of New York)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 1963RFCUNY has been the dedicated research foundation for CUNY since 1963, providing comprehensive research administration services across all 25 CUNY campuses. This is a foundational partnership where RFCUNY serves as the fiscal administrator for all CUNY sponsored research.
• CUNY Campus Grants OfficescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNetwork of grants administration offices at each of the 25 CUNY institutions, working directly with RFCUNY for proposal submission and award management support.
• CUNY Postdoctoral AssociationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative partnership supporting postdoctoral researchers at CUNY through advocacy, professional development, and community building. RFCUNY provides administrative support including payroll and compliance services.
• National Postdoctoral AssociationminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAffiliation with the national organization dedicated to improving the postdoctoral experience, providing connection to national standards and resources.
• Research Foundation for the State University of New York (RF SUNY)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerRFCUNY partner in administering the Master Research Agreement with Stony Brook University for the SWFT Labs partnership on sustainable cellulose nanomaterials commercialization.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Emerging players

• Cayuse: Provides research administration software (proposal development, compliance, awards lifecycle) to universities and hospitals. Comparable in addressing the same pre- and post-award workflows that RFCUNY handles operationally, but delivering via SaaS rather than captive services.
• InfoEd Global: Provides sponsored research administration solutions (SPIN database, eRA software) used by universities and research institutions. Overlaps with RFCUNY's research funding discovery, proposal development, and post-award management functions.
• Kuali: Builds open-source research administration and grants management software used by higher-education institutions. Comparable in scope to the awards lifecycle functionality within OneRF, but as a commercial/open-source software alternative rather than a service provider.
• Huron Research Suite: Huron offers research administration consulting and software serving universities and academic medical centers. Comparable to RFCUNY in serving the operational research administration needs of large research-active institutions, primarily via professional services and managed offerings.

Broad incumbents

• Workday (Higher Education): Workday's Higher Education and Grants Management modules are the underlying technology powering OneRF (RFCUNY's integrated system). Comparable in enabling HR, payroll, procurement, and grant-management workflows across universities, but positioned as a platform rather than an administered service.
• Oracle Grants Management: Oracle's Grants Management module is used by research institutions to administer pre- and post-award sponsored programs. Comparable in replacing the same back-office grants accounting and compliance workflow that OneRF performs for CUNY, but as enterprise software.
• Ellucian: A leading higher-education administrative software vendor serving research and student administration. Comparable in digitizing research-grant-adjacent workflows (researcher profiles, compliance, effort reporting) across U.S. colleges and universities.

Others

• Columbia University Research Administration: Operates sponsored programs and research compliance functions for a major New York research university. Comparable in supporting principal investigators through the full award lifecycle, but delivered in-house by Columbia rather than through a separate non-profit foundation.
• University of Michigan Office of Research and Sponsored Programs: Central sponsored programs office at a major U.S. research university handling pre- and post-award administration. Comparable function to RFCUNY's pre-award (APPS) and post-award services, though delivered as a university office rather than a separate foundation.

Direct peers

• Research Foundation for SUNY (RF SUNY): The sponsored research administration foundation serving the State University of New York system—structurally and functionally analogous to RFCUNY. RFCUNY and RF SUNY are already documented partners under a Master Research Agreement (SWFT Labs collaboration), confirming structural and operational comparability.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/research-foundation-of-cuny
• Xx.com/rfcuny

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors3 records

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Research Foundation of CUNY