SERG International

SERG International

A partnership in forest pest management research

Executive
Board

Terms of
Reference

Field Testing
Guidelines

Reporting
Policy

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Award

2025
Workshop

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Reports

Reporting Policy for SERG International

1. Introduction

SERG International (SERG-I) has an excellent reputation for supporting applied research and technology for use in forest pest management and other related fields. As a service to the technical community, SERG-I maintains on-line access to reports produced through the SERG-I process and distributes these as PDF files upon request. Typically, SERG-I facilitates some 20 research and development projects annually.

2. SERG International Reporting Requirements

As part of the agreement with a Principal Investigator (PI) who participates in the SERGI process, a final report (and yearly interim reports in the case of multi-year funding) is required by SERG-I. Final acceptance of report submissions is the responsibility of SERG-I funders

Final Reports

Copies of final reports will be distributed by the PI in the following manner:

  1. All Executive Committee members and funding agencies will receive one hard copy each (names and addresses of members can be obtained from the Executive Director) bound between SERG-I covers.
  2. the SERG-I Executive Director will receive 2 bound copies and a PDF version. A copy of the report will be filed with CISTI and distributed (PDF version) upon request.

Interim Reports
All formats discussed above are appropriate for interim reporting. It is suggested further that reporting requirements be discussed in the proposal and upon funding. As a minimum reporting requirement, an interim report will be required every year. Interim reports include

Proprietary Research

Proprietary industrial projects (as opposed to proprietary academic rights in order to protect publication potential) will be handled as a separate entity. In this case, an explicit contract will be entered into between funding members and Principal Investigator and the deliverables will be stated. This is the only case where a final report may not be required based on the specific contract.

3. Acceptance of SERG-I Reports

For most Projects, SERG-I will holdback 30% of allocated funds. These will be released upon acceptance of reporting requirements. Ultimately, acceptance of all SERG-I reports rests with the funding members. If a majority of the funding members accept a Final Report then the project is considered complete. If there is a dispute or in the unusual case of a deadlock, the SERG-I Executive Director will cast the deciding vote. The balance of project funds will be withheld and released only on report completion unless negotiated beforehand (i.e. in the case of the prospect of a long peer review process, the letter of submission to a journal would release the final balance of funds).

4. Delinquency

It will be the responsibility of the Funding members working with the Executive Director to obtain project reports. Reporting delinquency is a problem and can, in some cases, result in the inability of a funding member to generate additional funds for contribution to SERG International. Principal Investigators who don't fulfill yearly interim or final reporting requirements will not receive further funding from SERG-I until reporting requirements have been completed.

In the event a delinquent report is not 'in the works' (i.e., actively being worked on by data analyses and writing, and has a scheduled reporting date), or is not likely to be prepared as acknowledged by the original PI, then that PI will be obliged to provide the raw data and associated results that were collected, the objectives of the project, and as much detail as possible about the material and methods that were used. This information may be made available to one or more of the original funders of the project and subsequently made available by them to another researcher duly recognized by them and/or the SERG-I Executive who has interest in further analyses and reporting, though not necessarily to the exclusion of the original PI.