1. Researchfish Reporting NERC DTP Manager/Trainer
Dr Nigel Richards
NERC DTP Manager/Trainer

2. What is Researchfish and why is it used?
Researchfish is the system that the UK Research Councils use to gather feedback from all Research Council funded researchers about the outcomes from their work.
Researchfish is a service provided by Researchfish Ltd (
The Research Councils (RCUK) have a responsibility to demonstrate the value and impact of research and training supported through public funding.
RCUK uses information that researchers provide on the outputs, outcomes and impact (subsequently referred to as ‘outcomes’) of their Research Council-funded projects to report to, and engage with, both the Government and the public.

3. Who needs to submit?
All students funded by a Research Council should provide outcomes data via Researchfish.
Login details will be provided to all current RCUK funded students, as well as those RCUK-funded students who finished their PhD in the last year.
Students who are in their first year of study at the time of the data collection period are excluded from the exercise.

4. What you need to do?
You are responsible for providing information about the outcomes from your studentship
You will be invited to enter and submit data to Researchfish every year until three years after your studentship.
You should make sure your contact details are kept up to date for this purpose.
For this year the submitting period is 1st Feb to 10th March 2016
Your supervisor should also have access to your studentship details on Researchfish and will be able to help you provide the information, but cannot submit for you!

5. What you need to report
There are a whole range of outcomes that can be reported on Researchfish; however, many will not be relevant to you as a student (as this is a system used by everyone funded by the Research Councils). The most likely sections of relevance to you include:
Publications – tell us about any papers you have published as part of your PhD
Collaborations – tell us about any work you have completed in collaboration, for example with an industrial partner or another academic group
Engagement Activities – tell us about any instances where you communicated your research to a non-academic audience, e.g. presentations at science fairs or schools
Other Outputs & Knowledge / Future Steps – a section to allow you to tell us about anything else you think is an important outcome from your research
Secondments, Placements and Internships – an opportunity to report any time spent at other organisations

6. What you need to report
There are a whole range of outcomes that can be reported on Researchfish; however, many will not be relevant to you as a student (as this is a system used by everyone funded by the Research Councils). The most likely sections of relevance to you include:
Publications – tell us about any papers you have published as part of your PhD
Collaborations – tell us about any work you have completed in collaboration, for example with an industrial partner or another academic group
Engagement Activities – tell us about any instances where you communicated your research to a non-academic audience, e.g. presentations at science fairs or schools
Other Outputs & Knowledge / Future Steps – a section to allow you to tell us about anything else you think is an important outcome from your research
Secondments, Placements and Internships – an opportunity to report any time spent at other organisations
Most other sections are unlikely to be relevant, although there may be exceptions (such as Intellectual Property (IP) generated as part of your studentship).
It is very common for most impacts to occur towards the end of a project or after it has finished. Therefore, do not worry if you have nothing to report until towards the end of your PhD, just submit a blank response.
You will be invited to submit outcomes data again each year until three years after the end of your project.

7. How to start entering outcomes
You are responsible for providing information about the outcomes from your studentship
When you log on to Researchfish you can click the “view portfolio” button on the “Enter Outputs” line. You can enter details of outcomes by clicking on the relevant section on the left of the page (publications, collaborations, etc.), following the instructions. It is important that you then associate each outcome with the relevant award(s) as shown in In this section your studentship will be listed on the right of the screen.
You can enter data at any time but you will need to confirm that all of your information is accurate and complete during the annual submission period. The next submission period is 1st February until 10th March 2016.
You will receive a reminder to finish entering and submit your data. Successful submissions will be confirmed by the system via .

8. How will the Research Councils publicise results from Researchfish?
Only information formally submitted to Researchfish will be published. Submitting data means inputting the information in Researchfish (at any time) and clicking the ‘Submit’ button during the data gathering period (1st February to 10th March 2016). You should ensure that information submitted via Researchfish is not confidential or personal and can be published.
Information submitted via Researchfish may be made public (e.g. a subset of the data may be published in the future, for example through the Research Council’s Gateway to Research website, used to produce case studies or other analyses to help demonstrate the impact of postgraduate research and training, and to make sure that the Research Councils can make the best possible case for studentship support in the future. They will not necessarily contact you if they decide to use the information for such purposes.
Research Councils will also publish aggregated, non-attributable information about research outcomes via a number of sources such as annual Impact Reports.

10. Getting Help
A short introductory video is available on the researchfish website. More videos are available on a dedicated YouTube channel, and on Vimeo. Help and guidance is provided throughout the system (see the “?” symbol throughout). They also have a list of FAQs you can access.
Researchfish Ltd host regular webinars for both PIs and ROs, where they can learn how to use the system, or look in more detail at particular areas of functionality. New users are encouraged to sign up for these free short sessions, and you can also use their knowledgebase for additional support on their website
For technical problems accessing accounts or using the system, please contact researchfish directly via their various help links:
For all other queries (e.g. incorrect details entered on the system, guidance on who should be submitting and when, etc.), please contact the central RCUK support team in the first instance. They are able to answer most general queries and will pass any research-council specific ones on to the relevant team within each council.