Haven't you reported yet? Then we go to you

Annual reports are as traditional as “The Irony of Fate…” or Olivier salad. At the end of the year, researchers in Russia are busy writing a variety of reports. There are many of them, they take up time. What about in other countries? We asked our colleagues to send short comments about how they report at the end of the year at different points on the world map.

Maxim Pshenichnikov, Institute of Advanced Materials named after. Zernike, University of Groningen (Netherlands):

Annual reports on current scientific activities are not written at all. If desired, the group provides highlights: the most outstanding results of the group for the year, half a page maximum (the desire is usually for the group to remain “visible”). The management of the Institute finds published articles through databases and sends them to me for confirmation with the question: “have we missed anything?” Reports, seminars, conferences, membership in organizations, etc. no one cares at all except my CV, unless something very special comes up, like a prestigious award or a super-prestigious report. The institute undergoes international certification once every 5 years, and only then does the management ask to provide it with any extraordinary information, such as participation in editorial boards, preparation of conferences, newspaper publications and other publicity. At the same time, an independent organization conducts a bibliographic review: publications, citation index, h-index, etc.

Roberto Turolla, Faculty of Physics, University of Padua (Italy):

At the University of Padua, employees submit brief reports on their work every three years. The report includes a short (one page) description of the main research findings during this period. Previously, a list of publications and a list of courses taken were also attached. However, now that new rules have appeared in this regard, the administration cannot request information that is either already at its disposal (such as a list of courses taken) or is in the public domain (such as data on recent publications).

Ilya Usoskin, Head of the Cosmic Ray Monitoring Station, University of Oulu (Finland):

At our University of Oulu (Finland), there is no annual scientific report in the usual sense, with a description of scientific topics and achievements. However, a report is compiled on formal indicators for the past year for each department, which is then used in assessing this department and in distributing internal funding in proportion to the points scored.

Such formal indicators are publications (peer-reviewed journals, non-peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, abstracts, patents, popular science publications and interviews), participation in conferences, organization of conferences, scientific exchange (visits lasting more than two weeks, including staff, hosting), editorial activities, external funding (grants) and protected MSc and PhD degrees.

The most important are publications, advocacy and external funding. All publications are registered in the University publication database, with text (pdf) provided as they are published. Archives do not count as publications.

The report is submitted at the beginning of the year by filling out an online form, which takes from 15 minutes to an hour.

Darya Kosenko, Astronomical Institute of the University Utrecht (Netherlands):

In five years as a postdoc, I have not written a single report. Once a year, the Secretary of the Institute collects lists of publications from open sources. Sometimes asks employees to check that all significant work is taken into account.

Igor Cherednikov, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, University of Antwerp (Belgium):

I had to write various kinds of reports in Russia, Italy, Germany and Belgium, both on grants and simply on the results of activities for the year. Grants were the easiest: a short description of the results obtained and links to published articles, free form. But with the annual reports of a group or institute, things happened differently. In most cases, much the same as for grants, but individual reports are sent to the head of the unit, who compiles a collective report from them. There are also no complications or unnecessary formalities.

Only the Italian INFN (Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) predictably pleased us: we had to fill out an online form, which required well-known data on publications, conferences, seminars, languages ​​of publications, cities of events and similar “useful” information for scientometrics . The number of conference participants that people love to ask us for doesn’t seem to have needed to be invented. I, of course, fished out this information from the same Internet, where anyone and everyone could get it. The same forms are filled out (or were filled out a couple of years ago) by all INFN Fellows, Fellows and Associate Members. Otherwise, the process of writing reports went somewhat unnoticed.

Prepared by Sergey Popov