Enlighten Acquires ROMS: A New Chapter for Research Management Software in New Zealand

At a glance

• What’s happened: Enlighten Designs has acquired the ROMS research output management platform from Intuto.
• Who it affects: Universities, polytechnics, and research organisations currently using ROMS and those exploring options for managing research outputs.
• What’s changing: ROMS is moving to Enlighten Design’s management, with a structured handover running from 2 February to 31 March 2026. Enlighten assumes full operational responsibility on 31 March 2026.
• What’s not changing: The platform continues to operate as expected. There should be no interruption of service.

What is ROMS?

ROMS (Research Output Management System is a specialist software platform purpose-built for New Zealand’s tertiary education and research sector. It has been in active use since it was first developed for a New Zealand university in 2001, and today serves a wide range of universities, polytechnics, and research organisations across the country. Enlighten is acquiring ROMS from Intuto.

At its core, ROMS provides a centralised system for recording, managing, and publishing research outputs, including journal articles, conference papers, books, reports, and other works that researchers produce. For institutions managing hundreds or thousands of active researchers, keeping an accurate, up-to-date, and auditable record of that output is a significant operational challenge.

ROMS addresses that challenge by providing a single, reliable source of truth for research activity. It supports institutions across several critical functions:

• Compliance and reporting: New Zealand’s tertiary institutions operate under rigorous reporting obligations, including the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) and other government-mandated frameworks. ROMS helps institutions capture and structure the data needed to meet these requirements accurately and consistently.
• Funding accountability: With billions of dollars flowing through New Zealand’s research sector each year, funders and the public expect transparency about what that investment produces. ROMS provides the structured record-keeping that underpins funding accountability, helping institutions demonstrate the impact and volume of their research activity.
• Visibility and dissemination: Beyond compliance, ROMS helps institutions showcase their research. By managing how outputs are recorded and published, the platform supports the visibility of research activity both within and beyond the institution, contributing to reputation, collaboration, and public engagement.
• Institutional knowledge management: Research outputs represent a significant intellectual asset. ROMS ensures that this knowledge is captured, categorised, and preserved in a way that serves the institution long after individual researchers move on.

In complex reporting environments where accuracy, consistency, and auditability matter, ROMS provides the operational foundation that institutions depend on.

Why this acquisition matters

The acquisition comes at a time when the demands on research management systems are growing. Compliance requirements are becoming more complex, funding scrutiny is increasing, and institutions are under pressure to demonstrate the value of their research investment with greater precision and transparency.

For a platform as embedded in the sector as ROMS, long-term stewardship matters. This acquisition ensures that ROMS has the dedicated technical investment, product focus, and enterprise software expertise required to continue serving the sector reliably, and to evolve as institutional needs change.

Why Enlighten?

Enlighten isn't a holding company or a passive acquirer. We're a New Zealand-founded software company with 27 years of hands-on experience building, modernising, and supporting the systems that institutions depend on, from compliance and reporting to the platforms that keep everything running.

As a Microsoft Fabric Featured Partner, we specialise in bringing data systems together: helping organisations govern, analyse, and act on their information with confidence. The result? Stronger compliance, sharper reporting, and impact you can actually measure.

In education, our work with Wintec, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Pūkenga has improved student experiences and streamlined operations. In research, we've helped organisations like Sustainable Coastlines turn complex datasets into clear, actionable insights. That's the kind of combined expertise we'd bring to ROMS - modernising the platform, strengthening governance, and making the full value of its research visible.

Built on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure

As part of the acquisition, ROMS is being migrated to a modern, enterprise-grade architecture on Microsoft Azure, designed for security, scalability, and long-term evolution.

The platform will run on Azure’s managed application services, with a secure, API-driven design and a robust data foundation optimised for reporting, compliance, and future AI-enabled capabilities. ROMS will follow Microsoft’s Zero Trust security principles, leveraging identity-based access controls and encrypted data flows throughout the system.

This architecture allows ROMS to scale reliably across institutions, integrate cleanly with surrounding systems, and continuously evolve as cloud, data, and AI capabilities advance, without disruption to customers.

For institutions managing sensitive research data and meeting increasingly rigorous audit and compliance requirements, this is infrastructure that’s built for confidence.

What’s changing and what’s not

We recognise the responsibility that comes with operating a platform that plays such a central role in institutional reporting and public trust. Continuity is our first priority.

What’s staying the same

ROMS will continue to operate as expected. There should be no interruption of service. Your data, your workflows, and your reporting processes remain intact. Enlighten and Intuto are working together throughout the handover period to ensure support remains consistent and the transition is as seamless as possible.

What’s changing

Enlighten is taking over responsibility for operating, hosting, and managing ROMS. This includes migrating the platform to Azure and becoming the primary point of contact for customers going forward. The structured handover with Intuto runs from 2 February to 31 March 2026, with Enlighten assuming full operational responsibility on 31 March 2026.

The road ahead

The acquisition reflects a long-term commitment to ROMS and the education and research organisations that depend on it. Our investment plan is focused on four areas:

• Stability and performance: ensuring the platform runs reliably at all times, backed by Azure’s enterprise-grade infrastructure and Enlighten’s dedicated support capability.
• Security and data protection: implementing Zero Trust security principles, encrypted data flows, and identity-based access controls that meet the expectations of modern institutional IT environments.
• Customer-informed development: evolving the platform based on real needs from the organisations using it, not change for change’s sake. Incremental improvements that deliver clear, measurable value.
• Future-ready architecture: building on an API-driven, cloud-native foundation that positions ROMS to take advantage of advances in data, integration, and AI as they mature, ensuring the platform keeps pace with the sector.