About the Center for Managed Technology Services (CMTS)
The Center for Managed Technology Services (CMTS) is a service center within Texas A&M AgriLife Information Technology that delivers sustainable, scalable, and research-focused technology services across the Texas A&M University System. CMTS integrates people, technology, and compliance through a human-capital-centered managed services model based on standardized 52-hour service blocks. These blocks allow research teams to access the expertise they need in a measurable, predictable, and cost-effective way.
CMTS was created to address higher education’s productivity-cost paradox, where research programs are expected to expand capacity while funding remains flat. CMTS responds by sharing human capital across institutions, modernizing technology environments, and embedding compliance directly into the services researchers use every day.
As a system-of-systems innovation, CMTS brings together infrastructure, platforms, applications, data environments, cybersecurity, workflow design, and lifecycle management to create an integrated foundation that supports discovery, collaboration, data sharing, and long-term research sustainability.
CMTS is committed to collaboration, stewardship of resources, and measurable impact, ensuring that researchers, regardless of institution size, have access to the human capital required to succeed in a rapidly evolving digital research environment.
System-of-Systems Innovation
CMTS operates as a system-of-systems that intentionally unites:
- Technology
- People
- Compliance
- Research process design
- Lifecycle and sustainability practices
- Shared human capital
- Cost recovery
This integration creates a coherent, measurable, and replicable framework that strengthens research productivity without increasing cost. By ensuring that each component reinforces the others, the system-of-systems model supports both current research needs and long-term institutional sustainability.
Guiding Principles
CMTS operates according to guiding principles that inform decision-making, service design, and institutional engagement:
Human capital before technology.
CMTS prioritizes access to expertise over ownership of tools, ensuring that technology choices are driven by the people required to manage, secure, and sustain research environments.
Shared capacity over duplication.
CMTS expands capability by sharing specialized human capital across institutions rather than replicating isolated staffing models that are costly and unsustainable.
Compliance by design.
Security, accessibility, and regulatory requirements are embedded directly into services and workflows, reducing risk without adding administrative burden to researchers.
Measurable delivery and accountability.
Services are structured to be transparent, predictable, and measurable, supporting responsible cost recovery and informed decision-making.
Sustainability over short-term solutions.
CMTS favors approaches that can be maintained over time, even as funding, staffing, and research priorities evolve.
Collaboration over control.
CMTS operates as a partner and enabler, augmenting local capacity while respecting institutional governance and autonomy.
Value Proposition
CMTS increases research productivity by uniting people, technology, and compliance through standardized, cost-recovered service blocks. The system-of-systems model provides researchers with access to the expertise needed to manage platforms, applications, data, infrastructure, and security without increasing cost.
By embedding compliance into daily operations and making productivity visible, CMTS enables faculty, staff, and students to focus more fully on discovery and research outcomes.
Mission
Unite people, technology, and compliance through cost recovery to increase research productivity without increasing cost.
Vision
Build a connected research ecosystem where human capital is shared, measurable, and sustainable.
Core Values
- Collaboration over Competition
- Stewardship of Human Capital
- Innovation with Integrity
- Measurable Impact
- Equity through Access
- Sustainability by Design
