Research Project Reporting

Funders and research insitutions expect projects leaders to provide research reports periodically and at the end of a research project.

Periodic reports

Periodic reports may be annual, quarterly and sometimes even monthly. Considering research projects take time to complete activities and analysis, the more frequent the reporting, the less details are expected in the report. Sometimes funders may only request financial reports more frequently to ensure the funds are spent as planned, while activity progress reports may be requested less frequently. Continuation of funding may be dependent on submitting required reports on time. Some funders apply financial and other penalties for late reports so project management is extremely important.

The institution at which you are carrying out your research will also want to be informed at regular intervals about the progress of your project. Therefore, you will need to check both the internal reporting requirements of your institution and the external reporting requirements of your funder. The timelines and due dates may differ.

Some research projects are funded by multiple funders, which results in more complex reporting since each funder may impose different timelines and may require the report to be presented in different formats. It is advisable to provide separate financial statements for each funding source, to allow each funder to conduct easy financial reporting on their end. Funders may request finacial statements from the other funders to ensure their leverage expectations are met, you may need to ensure that you inform the funders that the financial statements will be shared.

Most funders provide a template for financial and progress reporting, and recently, many funders are using online cloud based systems that allow the project to submit their reports online after logging in. Depending on your institution financial reporting may be undertaken by the research office on your behalf; however, you should always remember that as Principal Investigator (PI) you have overall responsibility for the project.

The final report

At the end of the project you will be required to provide a final financial statement and a final report. Your research office may complete the financials for you but it is your responsbility as the PI to ensure accuracy of the information provided. The final reports usually tends to be more detailed and captures activities and results from the beginning of the project. Most of the analysis is complete at this point and the funder expects you will have met the objectives you had proposed in the beginning. Any deviations from the proposals should have been provided during the periodic reports.

Final reports may require approval/acceptance by the project team. Although the PI is responsible for delivering the project, the team should provide consent that the information in the report is what was actually done. This is especially important if aspects of the project have potential for commercialization.

Records

At the end of your project you will need to make sure that your records are complete and in order. It is possible that your project could be subject to audit at some stage in the following few years, and having a complete set of records at this stage could save a great deal of time later.