Annual reporting guide · National Science Foundation program
NeuroNex annual reporting: what the report needs and where the time goes
Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience
NeuroNex funds networks and technology hubs instead of single-site centers. What makes that valuable for science also makes it hard to administer.
What reviewers look for
Network activity across sites, and how the technology the hub produces is shared and adopted.
The sections that cost the most time
- Distributed personnel
- People work at institutions the award does not employ, in local systems it cannot see. A single list of members with roles and dates must be kept on purpose, or it does not exist.
- Technology dissemination
- The output is a method or an instrument that other labs adopt. Adoption happens elsewhere, and it is reported back only if somebody asks.
- Cross-site collaboration evidence
- The network must be visible in the outputs: co-authored papers and shared projects across sites, found in the records instead of simply claimed.
- Training across institutions
- Workshops and training events run at several sites with different local record-keeping, then have to be counted as one program with consistent demographics.
What NeuroNex is
NeuroNex funds neurotechnology hubs and the networks around them: groups building methods and instruments for neuroscience, and the community of labs that adopt them. The award funds a network spread across institutions.
What the annual report asks for
The standard National Science Foundation (NSF) center sections, reported across a set of institutions instead of one. Personnel, publications, outreach, events, partnerships and training all have to be reported for the network as a whole.
Dissemination carries unusual weight. A hub that builds a technique nobody else uses has not done its job, so the report needs evidence of adoption outside the funded group.
Where the time goes
Each institution keeps its own records, and none of them sees the whole network.
Each site has its own directory, its own human resources system and its own way of recording a workshop. So every year, the person assembling the report combines several partial pictures into one by hand, and that work is thrown away afterwards.
Adoption is harder still. The labs that picked up the technology are not on the award, have no reporting relationship to it, and often do not know that their use counts as an outcome.
How SimplyScholar helps
We built and ran neuronex.org, the NeuroNex program website, for the University of Houston, starting in 2018. SimplyScholar, our software for research centers, grew out of that work.
KZN has created a public facing website through which NeuroNex awardees share documents, research and resources, publications and job opportunities. KZN has ensured our complex work is communicated openly and clearly to the public.
SimplyScholar keeps the network's own record in one place. People have roles with start and end dates at every site. Projects are kept in the same record, and publications are imported from CrossRef by Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and matched to researchers. The public website is built from those records.
Other annual reporting guides
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National Science Foundation program
MIP annual reporting guide
Mid-scale user facilities for materials synthesis, characterization and theory. Most reportable output comes from external users.
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National Science Foundation program
MRSEC annual reporting guide
Multi-institutional materials centers. The report depends on the thrust structure and the shared facilities, and both need data collected all year.
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National Science Foundation program
EPIIC annual reporting guide
Capacity-building awards. The report must show new institutional capability, which leaves much less evidence than research output.
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