Reporting

Reporting is the most important part in the feedback cycle of the demonstration “lifecycle” process, yet is the easiest to overlook as can be viewed as a non-essential stage, or just as being more work. There is little point in undertaking a demonstration if external audiences are not aware of the project’s success, your technology’s potential, your company’s specialist expertise and if collective learning points are not fed-back into future projects. When good quality reporting is overlooked there is also a risk that knowledge will be lost from an organization.

Good reporting of a demonstration project is integral to imparting confidence to a potential client. Better reported projects with some form of verification or peer-review are more likely to win future work and also be better placed to gain more favorable funding arrangements. Well disseminated transparent reporting helps ensure sustained company profile rather than just placing importance in company marketing when procuring work becomes difficult. Imparting confidence can only be achieved by open reporting which details the technical, environmental and some financial stages involved in the planning and execution of a demonstration project.

Reporting can be undertaken in many different forms, ranging from: a standard project report for a client or a grant funding body; a scientific paper for a journal application; an internal validation report; or reporting into a projects database. Each reporting type will have its individual standards and requirements, most usually including an element of quality review of content and content layout which can be found out by contacting the responsible organization directly. European or National forms of reporting remediation demonstrations can be found in the Table for European or national forms of reporting remediation demonstrations.

To gain basic exposure, vendors can report their demonstrations in the  EURODEMO Projects Database. The database requires the reporter’s biography and allows reference to national verification achieved, however, it operates on a “buyer beware” principal in the same manner as the  US EPA’s CLU-IN Remediation Technology databases. Explanatory help sheets for database entry are available from the EURODEMO database page. Cataloguing your demonstrations in this European database will allow users to find your technology or specialist skills when searching for solutions featuring similar contaminants, or ground conditions or specific technologies.