Guidelines for Final Reporting

GUIDELINES FOR FINAL REPORTING

Adaptation Research Grants Program (ARGP)

This information is available from the NCCARF website

Version 2

November 26th, 2012

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Contents

1.INTRODUCTION......

1.1Content of final reporting......

1.2Order of submission......

2.PREPARING YOUR RESEARCH REPORT......

2.1Content and structure of the Research Report......

3.STYLE AND CONTENT GUIDES FOR PART A: RESEARCH REPORT...

3.1Contents page layout......

3.2Margins......

3.3Paragraphs and fonts......

3.4Heading levels......

3.5Language, grammar and style

3.6References

3.7Caption positioning and font......

3.8Page numbering......

3.9Acronyms......

3.10Use of logos......

3.11 Standard copyright and acknowledgement......

3.12Attribution of images......

3.13Ownership of photos, images and figures......

4.Evaluating your research impact using the NCCARF Impact Model

4.1Research impact......

4.2Research benefits......

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1.INTRODUCTION

1.1Content of final reporting

Your Final Reporting for your ARGP project has three parts:

Research ReportThis is a ‘Final Report’ in the traditional sense. We provide you with a styleguide for preparing it (Section 2 below). This is the report that will undergo peer review. You submit it the first time in draft form; reviewer feedback will then be provided to you as a basis for your submission of the final version. It will need to include an Executive Summary which will satisfy your reporting requirement to provide a Non-Technical Summary if you follow these guidelines.

Project Evaluation ReportThis report asks, did things go according to plan? If not, why not? It will be very quick to fill in if things went smoothly, a little more onerous if you ran into any difficulties

Audited Financial ReportThis report is generally taken care of by your Office of Research or administrative officer. We will contact them directly.

1.2Order of submission

The due dates of these parts of your final reporting are listed in your Funding Agreement and will be sent to you by your project contact at NCCARF. In most cases, the order of submission and the process to expect is:

DraftResearch Report. This draft report goes for external review. Review comments are received by NCCARF and then returned for you to address in your Final version of the Research Report.

Final Research Report, This is the final version of your report and should address review comments and be accompaniedby a response to the reviewer comments. The final version will be signed off by NCCARF.

Project Evaluation Report. This should accompany your submission of the final version of the Research Report. This does not go to external review.

Audited Financial Report is usually submitted some time later by the Adminstrative Contact listed on the funding agreement for your project. We will work with them directly.

Note that your Funding Agreement also refers to a Non-technical Summary suitable for public dissemination. In these Guidelines, and to reduce reporting requirements, we have specified that the Executive Summary of your Research Report is your Non-technical Summary. Please write it on that assumption.

In Section 2 of this document we provide you withguidelines to help you with submission of your Research Report. Please read them carefully.

2.PREPARING YOUR RESEARCH REPORT

This section provides a guide to the reporting requirements for your Research Report.

The NCCARF style and content guidelines have been developed to ensure consistency in Research Reports under the Adaptation Research Grants Program. Note that your Funding Agreement sets out topics that must be covered in your Final Report (see Section 2.1).

Note that:

Draft Research Reports will be sent out for review by two reviewers, and you wil be asked to address their comments and submit a final version which will be signed off by NCCARF;
Research Reports in their final version will be made available for download from the NCCARF website, and may be produced in hard copy for distribution.

When submitting both the draft and final versions of your Research Report, please provide NCCARF with electronic copies of:

a)The Research Report in .pdf format; and

b)The Research Report in MS Word .doc or .docx.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the proper permissions for reproduction of photos and figures[1]. Full credit should be given in the Report for their reproduction.

In most cases, the .pdf version of your report will be placed directly on the NCCARF website. In some cases, however, NCCARF may also print copies of your report so please provide images in sufficient resolution to enable good quality printing.

NCCARF will obtain and supply you with the ISBN number for your publication, at the time you receive the reviewer comments on your draft Research Report.

2.1Content and structure of the Research Report

Your Research Report should be a comprehensive account of the project and its findings. It should also be written to be accessible and understandable by the interested lay person.

Because of the terms in your Funding Agreement, you are contractually obliged to address the following topics,. They are:

Abstract (not more than 500 words)
Executive Summary
Objectives of the research
Research activities and methods
Results and outputs
Discussion of these results and outputs, including publications
Gaps and future research directions.

There is no requirement to use these topics titles as headings, but if you do not, it must be clearly obvious to the reader that they have been addressed.

The Abstract should be freestanding, written in plain English, and no more than 500 words. NCCARF plans to include it in a document outlining its research portfolio. Full attribution will be given.

The Executive Summary should be freestanding, written in plain English, and no more than two pages in length (or approximately 1200 words). If it is a comprehensive description of your project, it is likely to fulfill your requirement to provide a non-technical summary. If appropriate, NCCARF will publish this as a stand-alone document for communication of relevant research findings for adaptation decision making. Please write the Executive Summary in this knowledge, to be an interesting and informative summary of your project with the emphasis on policy-relevant results. Note that proper attribution to the authors will be made.

3.STYLE AND CONTENT GUIDES FOR PART A: RESEARCH REPORT

There is a template available; if you wish to use it, please contact your Research Coordinator. Otherwise, please follow the instructions below. Note that ARGP final reports are being uploaded to the NCCARF website and can be used as examples of layout (e.g. see

Report Web ready.pdf)

The layout of the first sixpages should be:

First: Cover page(for format, see final page this document)

Second: Leave empty

Third: Title page

Fourth:Publishing, copyright and disclaimer information(see Section 3.11)

Fifth (page i): Table of contents. This should be numbered i

Sixth (page ii):Leave empty or continuation of table of contents

Following pages:List of figures, List of tables, Acknowledgements if appropriate (this doesn’t include acknowledgement of DCCEE and NCCARF, which goes on fourth page, see Section 3.11)

The Report content begins on the next right-handpage, with the Abstract, and page numbering should start at 1 here. All subsequent Level 1sections should start on a new page.

3.1Contents page layout

The table of contents page and main section of the report start on an odd numbered page to ensure they are on the right hand side when printed double sided.
Please use thisorder and format for the contents page:

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgements (if required)

Abstract

Executive Summary

1. Section

1.1 Subsection

1.1.1 Sub-subsectio

3.2Margins

Please use mirror margins throughout the document (so it can be bound):

Inside margin – 40mm
Outside margin – 20mm
Bottom and top margins – 25mm

3.3Paragraphs and fonts

Use single spacing with a double carriage return to mark the end of each paragraph.
Please use Arial as the primary font for all material.
Body text: Use Arial 11 pt as the main text font

3.4Heading levels

Fonts for Subsection/Level titles:

For Level 1 Titles use Arial 14 pt bold CAPITALS. Start a new page for Level 1 headings and leave a 12 pt space after.

For Level 2 Titles use Arial 13 pt bold italic. Space with 12 pts before and 6 after.

For Level 3 Titles use Arial 12 pt bold italic. Space with 6 pt before and 6 pt after.

For example:

1. HEADING 1
1.1Heading 2
1.1.1 Heading 3

3.5Language, grammar and style

Australian Government Style Manual

Language, spelling, grammar and style should adhere to the Australian Government Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers (sixth edition):

Style Manual for Authors, editors and printers, 2002, sixth edition, John Wiley & Sons, Australia, 550pp.ISBN: 978-0-7016-3648-7

This is published by John Wiley and Sons and available online at

3.6References

At the end of the document, please provide a list of all references cited in the report. References should be cited in Harvard format.

3.7Caption positioning and font

Figures:
Figure titles to go below the figures and be in Arial 11 pt bold
Numbering should be consecutive and not associated with sections
Tables:

Table titles to go above the tables and be in Arial 11 pt bold
Numbering should be consecutive and not associated with sections

3.8Page numbering

Page 1 should be the page on which the report content starts i.e. with the Abstract.

3.9Acronyms

The first time an acronym is used it should be spelt out, but from the next use onwards the acronym should be used.If a large number of acronyms are used, please consider adding a List of Acronyms.

3.10Use of logos

The NCCARF logo is available on the front and last pages of this document, and from your Research Co-ordinator.

3.11Standard copyright and acknowledgement

Except where alternative intellectual property agreements have been negotiated prior to the project commencing, the copyright notice should read:

The standard NCCARF disclaimer and acknowledgement should be included on the Fourth page of your Report. It should read as:

Acknowledgement

This work was carried out with financial support from the Australian Government (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF). The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth or NCCARF, and neither the Commonwealth nor NCCARF accept responsibility for information or advice contained herein.

The role of NCCARF is to lead the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by decision-makers in government, business and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risk of climate change impacts.

3.12Attribution of images

NCCARF must be able to provide a credit to the original creator or organisation that owns an image. If NCCARF cannot confirm the provenance of an image we will remove it from a document.

The format for attribution is:

For images taken or contributed by individuals: Image: Photographer’s name; and
For images sourced from an organisation library (e.g. CSIRO science images, Newspix, NASA, NOAA): Image: Organisation or Image: Organisation/Photographer’s name (where name is specified).

3.13Ownership of photos, images and figures

Most images in federal and state government archives are not in the public domain, nor are they free to use. Please seek written permission from the copyright holder before using them. Wikipedia images are also not necessarily free to use without permission.

Images taken from online creative commons web sources such as Wiki Commons or Flickr Creative Commons are free, but may only be used according to the licence under which they are published. Typically, this requires attribution to the original creator.

For a full explanation of commons licences visit

Good sources of free or royalty free images include:

(attribution usually required-check each photo);
(attribution usually required-check each photo);
(attribution not required).

If in doubt, contact your organisation’s communications department, or email the creator of the image. Include as much information as possible about where you acquired the image and how you wish to use it.

Images from commercial news media are not free, and all require attribution. These typically cost $110 each.They must only be used if purchased from the organisation for the intended single use – please provide evidence of purchase. CSIRO Science Images are not free and must be purchased from CSIRO, unless the author is a CSIRO employee.

Good commercial media sites:

, ,

4.Evaluating your research impact using the NCCARF Impact Model

Section 3.3 of the Project Evaluation Report asks you to evaluate your research impact using the NCCARF Impact Model. The NCCARF Impact Model is based on the Impact Tool used by the Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs).

The NCCARF model links all elements of the research value chain (Figure 1 and Table 1) to identify impacts and benefits generated by NCCARF research.

Figure 1: Research Value Chain according to the NCCARF Research Impact Model

Table 1: The Value Chain explained

Inputs: / The resources that support the project
•Co-funding - other resources leveraged by the project, including cash and in-kind
•Level of seed funding
•Value for money
•Budget for seed funding expenditure: salaries, operating and capital
Activities: / the breadth of the research activities
•Discussion of the proposed research activities, according to the selection criteria: appropriateness, challenge and innovation, project design, feasibility and track record
Outputs: / the end products of the research
•Research outputs, particularly as intended to meet the needs of end-users. These outputs are defined as: end products of research activities including publications, patents, prototypes, student completions, etc.
•Milestones for delivery of outputs
Usage: / how the research end products will be used
•Defined plans for dissemination and use of research outputs and engagement of end-users in that process: Usage includes technology transfer and take-up, and use of research outputs by end- users. Any commercial utilisation would include the manufacture, sale, hire or other exploitation of a product or process, or the provision of a service, incorporating intellectual property, or licensing of any third party to do any of those things, or otherwise licensing or assigning the intellectual property
•Anticipated milestones for delivery of usage
Impacts: / the impact to Australia from the usage of the research end products
•Identification of the impacts flowing for Australia from usage of the research outputs
•Anticipated timeline for key impacts
Benefits: / the value of the impact
•Estimation of the value of any monetary benefits
•Description of non-monetary benefits, including quantification where appropriate

The first four elements of the Value Chain are described by your project proposal, your end-user engagement plan and your final reporting, if these have been prepared properly. What we ask you to deal with in this section are the IMPACT and BENEFIT.

4.1Research impact

Identify the impacts (realised or expected) flowing for Australia from usage of the research outputs. These may be:

Research-related impacts
Policy impacts
Societal impacts
Service impacts

Please refer to Table 2 for some thoughts on what aspects of your research may have had a beneficial impact on adaptation in Australia. In doing so, please give some consieeration to time-scales. What will the impacts of your research be in the short-term (12 - 24 months), medium-term (2 – 5 years) and long term (+5 years)?

4.2Research benefits

Please describe the benefits (realised or expected) to Australia, including quantification where possible, of the defined impacts.

Table 2: Examples of benefits

Research-related impacts

Type of problem/knowledge
Research methods
Publications and papers
Products, patents and translatability potential
Research networks
Leadership and awards
Research management
Communication

/ Societal impacts

Knowledge, attitudes and behaviour
Equity and human rights
Macroeconomic/related to the economy
Social capital and empowerment
Culture and art
Sustainable development outcomes

Policy impacts

Level of policy-making
Type of policy
Nature of policy impact
Policy networks
Political capital

/ Service impacts

Type of services
Evidence-based practice
Information systems
Services management
Cost-containment and cost-effectiveness

Final Reporting Guidelines 1

SHORT TITLE (NO MORE THAN 10 WORDS)

Project title as per funding agreement (if different from the short title)

Authors

XXX

COVER IMAGE/S – Please insert thumbnails and provide high res versions via email or dropbox to your research co-ordinator with copyright information

Final Reporting Guidelines 1

[1]Any figures previously published, even if you are the author, must have written permission from the publisher to reproduce them in a published final report. Most publishers have a simple process which is available on their website. Any photos must have permission for use from the photographer.