The Tech Faculty Management decided at the meeting on 16 April 2021 that internal working documents as well as notes and reports for internal use at the recipient must be handled as follows:

• Internal notes (working documments) used for communication internally at AU  are not required to be quality assured
• Prelimenary working documents that are exchanged between AU and external collaboration partners during a project should be clearly marked  that they are not quality assured and not meant for publikation
• If an internal note or working document is or can be published against expectations, it must be quality assured according to Tech's quality management system, and the resulting product must be published in one of the three report categories in which faculty management has decided that departments and centers under Tech publish reports (Read more here)
• Products delivered for internal use by a requisitioner must be treated like any other product issued by Tech: The product must undergo quality assurance in accordance with Tech's quality management system for research-based public sector consultancy. Whether the product should be published depends on the agreement with the requisitioner. These products may in certain cases be provided upon request for access to documents, which, however, depends on a legal assessment of any confidentiality.

The concept of "internal report / internal note" is reserved for AU and project internal products

The concept of internal, internal reports and internal notes must in future be aimed at working documents that, for the same reason, do not require the same quality assurance as final products in the form of reports and notes. Such internal working documents, whether they are for use internally at AU or are a preliminary part of a collaboration process with external partners, must be clearly stated that they are not intended for publication and that they are not quality assured.

Conversely, it must be expected, both by AU and by requisitioners, that all reports and notes issued by AU are quality assured. This applies to both products that are intended for publication and confidential products for internal use by the requester without publication. 

Exception to the quality assurance rule

At the meeting on 25 April 2025, the Faculty Management decided that purely administrative status and final reports for research projects should not be quality assured, neither by the peer nor by the centre unit.

Therefore, in such administrative status and final reports for research projects, the following disclaimer must be included [delete the part that is not relevant in square brackets]:

Ministerial funds:

"The [Status/End] report has not been peer-reviewed. The [Status/End] Report is not an advisory product and may not be used as such. Requests for advice must be made via the Ministry's ordering system"

Private foundations:

"The [Status/End] report has not been peer-reviewed. The [Status/Final] report is not an advisory product and may not be used as such."

Placement of the disclaimer

If the status/final report requires a section with results, the disclaimer should be written at the top of this section. Otherwise, the disclaimer should be written at the beginning of the Status/Final Report in question.

The above is the responsibility of the project manager.

Also note that in some contracts it is stated that the final report must be quality assured. This must be followed as Tech obviously cannot deviate from contractual obligations