Preparing the mid-term review annex without redrawing the whole report
Mid-term reviews punish last-minute figure lists. A claim register agreed in month eighteen saves the drawing week in month twenty-three.
Most UK programme grants ask for a mid-term view that is shorter than the final report but just as tightly tied to the original work packages. Teams often copy year-one charts, update the numbers, and hope the panel accepts the same story. Panels compare the annex to the bid. They notice vanished indicators.
Six months before the review date, list every indicator promised in the bid. Mark each as reportable, delayed, or dropped — with a one-line reason you are willing to print. That list is the claim register. Drawing starts only after it is signed by the PI.
Dropped indicators should not disappear. A small table — ‘not collected because the partner withdrew’ — is more respectable than a silent gap. Service Trailline will still draw the remaining figures; we will not fill the gap with a proxy the bid never named unless you instruct us in writing and accept the wording.
Build the annex around the funder’s heading order, not around the charts you happen to like. If ‘learning and negative findings’ is a required heading, reserve a page even if the figure is a simple count of protocol changes.
Leave five working days between final figures and institutional sign-off. University press offices and charity boards still catch number errors that the research team has stared past.