•    Average annual reporting time remains steady: The mean time researchers take to report on a single award is around 45 minutes per year, and the median user time is around 30 minutes per year. 
•    Automated data harvesting reduces workload: Researchfish innovations enable automatic or semi-automatic extraction of outcome data from various external sources, decreasing the need for manual researcher input and focusing their effort on areas where they are needed. 
•    Collaborative reporting enhances efficiency: The platform supports team-based reporting, allowing multiple researchers to share the reporting workload on a single award, contributing to the majority of individuals spending under 30 minutes per year reporting for most of the past several years.  

 

Mean Average Time to Report in Researchfish: 

Definition: Within each analytic period the mean or average amount of time taken to submit an award is calculated using the sum total of all user time on Researchfish within the time period and dividing by the number of awards submitted. This means that it is an overestimate as it assumes that time is only spent to submit awards, when in reality there are other activities the user may spend time doing included in the calculation.    This is the most conservative and safest approach.
 

Time Frame: This has been calculated by the sum total of all user time on Researchfish from Jan 1st, 2016   . Data has been used from this time span to help understand the trend across multiple years.
 

Insights: The mean or average user time per submitted award across the whole year stayed at roughly 49 minutes, and the mean user time per submitted award in Q1 of 2025 was 44 minutes. This time can be shared between the PI and other research team members. The user data from 2024 shows that the time a median user spent on Researchfish was roughly 32 minutes. The median user is the middle value of the list of users when they are ordered from lowest to highest time spent.
 

The time users spend reporting for grants in Researchfish on average is relatively short, which is consistent, as enhancements to harvesting and platform updates are making it easier and faster for researchers to report their output and outcome information.
 

Researchfish Harvested Data Sources: 

Definition: Innovations to Researchfish mean that data can now be harvested from an even broader range of external sources. This means that data can be extracted automatically or semi-automatically from other systems, instead of researchers having to manually input this information. 

Data Sources Include: Outcomes automatically harvested and attributed from a 3rd party source, outcomes personally harvested into their personal portfolio, RO repository data harvest, and search tools within Researchfish researchers can use for data to be pulled in from elsewhere.
 

Insights: The impact of new functionality and infrastructure changes has been to substantially increase the proportion of output/outcome data which is fully automated or only requires partial low burden reporting, thus decreasing the level of manual researcher reporting.
 

Information which is wholly or partially available from external sources can be harvested and the researcher is therefore able to focus their time reporting information which is not already available or documented elsewhere.

 

People involved in projects and individual person activity:

Definition: When considering the time spent reporting in Researchfish, it’s important to highlight that the system allows for multiple people to report on an award as part of a team.
 

Insights: If the average person spends less than 35 minutes reporting in Researchfish, a key factor to the efficiency of this process is the ability for Research Teams to collaborate on reporting through the system.