ResearchFish: Which publications count? In the UK, for grant-holders there is an annual need to report all publications via ResearchFish to the UK government. In mathematics, it is confusing which papers should be included. Do I include arxiv postings? Papers that have been published since the onset of the grant? Both? I want to do the most ethical thing, but these lines seem much more blurred in mathematics--there's times where papers will take >2 years to get published so the "products" from a grant would be shunted to the next grant, etc. 


Do I put in work that was started before the grant and then was finished during the grant?
Do I include arxiv postings? 
Do I include published work that was on the arxiv before the grant started?


Thank you for your time.
I work at Researchfish now but prior to that I was at one of the research councils (MRC). I have had an ongoing involvement in the system, and particularly in defining the question set/information collected. The main aim is to collect outputs against the relevant funding i.e. a paper should be associated with the award if that funding has in any way contributed to or supported the research or other activities to produce the paper.

So, with regard to your questions:
Do I put in work that was started before the grant and then was finished during the grant?
- yes, if the grant has supported some of the latter parts of the work whether in resource, salary etc.

Do I include arxiv postings?
- my understanding is that arxiv is for preprints, funders tend not to need to know about a paper until it is published, although there are some exceptions so you should check with your specific funder. If your funder does want to now about papers before they are published this will be done through the additional sections of questions, rather than the main publications section.

Do I include published work that was on the arxiv before the grant started?
- this is less likely, unless there is significant change in the paper between the preprint on arXiv and the published version. Again, please think about the funding.

I hope this helps, but your funder should be able to clarify this further.

Bev Sherbon

Impact &amp; Evaluation Adviser, Researchfish