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Research Report – Example, Writing Guide and Types

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Research Report

Definition:

Research Report is a written document that presents the results of a research project or study, including the research question, methodology, results, and conclusions, in a clear and objective manner.

The purpose of a research report is to communicate the findings of the research to the intended audience, which could be other researchers, stakeholders, or the general public.

Components of Research Report

Components of Research Report are as follows:

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for the research report and provides a brief overview of the research question or problem being investigated. It should include a clear statement of the purpose of the study and its significance or relevance to the field of research. It may also provide background information or a literature review to help contextualize the research.

Literature Review

The literature review provides a critical analysis and synthesis of the existing research and scholarship relevant to the research question or problem. It should identify the gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the literature and show how the current study addresses these issues. The literature review also establishes the theoretical framework or conceptual model that guides the research.

Methodology

The methodology section describes the research design, methods, and procedures used to collect and analyze data. It should include information on the sample or participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis techniques. The methodology should be clear and detailed enough to allow other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the study in a clear and objective manner. It should provide a detailed description of the data and statistics used to answer the research question or test the hypothesis. Tables, graphs, and figures may be included to help visualize the data and illustrate the key findings.

The discussion section interprets the results of the study and explains their significance or relevance to the research question or problem. It should also compare the current findings with those of previous studies and identify the implications for future research or practice. The discussion should be based on the results presented in the previous section and should avoid speculation or unfounded conclusions.

The conclusion summarizes the key findings of the study and restates the main argument or thesis presented in the introduction. It should also provide a brief overview of the contributions of the study to the field of research and the implications for practice or policy.

The references section lists all the sources cited in the research report, following a specific citation style, such as APA or MLA.

The appendices section includes any additional material, such as data tables, figures, or instruments used in the study, that could not be included in the main text due to space limitations.

Types of Research Report

Types of Research Report are as follows:

Thesis is a type of research report. A thesis is a long-form research document that presents the findings and conclusions of an original research study conducted by a student as part of a graduate or postgraduate program. It is typically written by a student pursuing a higher degree, such as a Master’s or Doctoral degree, although it can also be written by researchers or scholars in other fields.

Research Paper

Research paper is a type of research report. A research paper is a document that presents the results of a research study or investigation. Research papers can be written in a variety of fields, including science, social science, humanities, and business. They typically follow a standard format that includes an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion sections.

Technical Report

A technical report is a detailed report that provides information about a specific technical or scientific problem or project. Technical reports are often used in engineering, science, and other technical fields to document research and development work.

Progress Report

A progress report provides an update on the progress of a research project or program over a specific period of time. Progress reports are typically used to communicate the status of a project to stakeholders, funders, or project managers.

Feasibility Report

A feasibility report assesses the feasibility of a proposed project or plan, providing an analysis of the potential risks, benefits, and costs associated with the project. Feasibility reports are often used in business, engineering, and other fields to determine the viability of a project before it is undertaken.

Field Report

A field report documents observations and findings from fieldwork, which is research conducted in the natural environment or setting. Field reports are often used in anthropology, ecology, and other social and natural sciences.

Experimental Report

An experimental report documents the results of a scientific experiment, including the hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusions. Experimental reports are often used in biology, chemistry, and other sciences to communicate the results of laboratory experiments.

Case Study Report

A case study report provides an in-depth analysis of a specific case or situation, often used in psychology, social work, and other fields to document and understand complex cases or phenomena.

Literature Review Report

A literature review report synthesizes and summarizes existing research on a specific topic, providing an overview of the current state of knowledge on the subject. Literature review reports are often used in social sciences, education, and other fields to identify gaps in the literature and guide future research.

Research Report Example

Following is a Research Report Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Academic Performance among High School Students

This study aims to investigate the relationship between social media use and academic performance among high school students. The study utilized a quantitative research design, which involved a survey questionnaire administered to a sample of 200 high school students. The findings indicate that there is a negative correlation between social media use and academic performance, suggesting that excessive social media use can lead to poor academic performance among high school students. The results of this study have important implications for educators, parents, and policymakers, as they highlight the need for strategies that can help students balance their social media use and academic responsibilities.

Introduction:

Social media has become an integral part of the lives of high school students. With the widespread use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, students can connect with friends, share photos and videos, and engage in discussions on a range of topics. While social media offers many benefits, concerns have been raised about its impact on academic performance. Many studies have found a negative correlation between social media use and academic performance among high school students (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010; Paul, Baker, & Cochran, 2012).

Given the growing importance of social media in the lives of high school students, it is important to investigate its impact on academic performance. This study aims to address this gap by examining the relationship between social media use and academic performance among high school students.

Methodology:

The study utilized a quantitative research design, which involved a survey questionnaire administered to a sample of 200 high school students. The questionnaire was developed based on previous studies and was designed to measure the frequency and duration of social media use, as well as academic performance.

The participants were selected using a convenience sampling technique, and the survey questionnaire was distributed in the classroom during regular school hours. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.

The findings indicate that the majority of high school students use social media platforms on a daily basis, with Facebook being the most popular platform. The results also show a negative correlation between social media use and academic performance, suggesting that excessive social media use can lead to poor academic performance among high school students.

Discussion:

The results of this study have important implications for educators, parents, and policymakers. The negative correlation between social media use and academic performance suggests that strategies should be put in place to help students balance their social media use and academic responsibilities. For example, educators could incorporate social media into their teaching strategies to engage students and enhance learning. Parents could limit their children’s social media use and encourage them to prioritize their academic responsibilities. Policymakers could develop guidelines and policies to regulate social media use among high school students.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, this study provides evidence of the negative impact of social media on academic performance among high school students. The findings highlight the need for strategies that can help students balance their social media use and academic responsibilities. Further research is needed to explore the specific mechanisms by which social media use affects academic performance and to develop effective strategies for addressing this issue.

Limitations:

One limitation of this study is the use of convenience sampling, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other populations. Future studies should use random sampling techniques to increase the representativeness of the sample. Another limitation is the use of self-reported measures, which may be subject to social desirability bias. Future studies could use objective measures of social media use and academic performance, such as tracking software and school records.

Implications:

The findings of this study have important implications for educators, parents, and policymakers. Educators could incorporate social media into their teaching strategies to engage students and enhance learning. For example, teachers could use social media platforms to share relevant educational resources and facilitate online discussions. Parents could limit their children’s social media use and encourage them to prioritize their academic responsibilities. They could also engage in open communication with their children to understand their social media use and its impact on their academic performance. Policymakers could develop guidelines and policies to regulate social media use among high school students. For example, schools could implement social media policies that restrict access during class time and encourage responsible use.

References:

• Kirschner, P. A., & Karpinski, A. C. (2010). Facebook® and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), 1237-1245.
• Paul, J. A., Baker, H. M., & Cochran, J. D. (2012). Effect of online social networking on student academic performance. Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology, 8(1), 1-19.
• Pantic, I. (2014). Online social networking and mental health. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(10), 652-657.
• Rosen, L. D., Carrier, L. M., & Cheever, N. A. (2013). Facebook and texting made me do it: Media-induced task-switching while studying. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 948-958.

Note*: Above mention, Example is just a sample for the students’ guide. Do not directly copy and paste as your College or University assignment. Kindly do some research and Write your own.

Applications of Research Report

Research reports have many applications, including:

• Communicating research findings: The primary application of a research report is to communicate the results of a study to other researchers, stakeholders, or the general public. The report serves as a way to share new knowledge, insights, and discoveries with others in the field.
• Informing policy and practice : Research reports can inform policy and practice by providing evidence-based recommendations for decision-makers. For example, a research report on the effectiveness of a new drug could inform regulatory agencies in their decision-making process.
• Supporting further research: Research reports can provide a foundation for further research in a particular area. Other researchers may use the findings and methodology of a report to develop new research questions or to build on existing research.
• Evaluating programs and interventions : Research reports can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and interventions in achieving their intended outcomes. For example, a research report on a new educational program could provide evidence of its impact on student performance.
• Demonstrating impact : Research reports can be used to demonstrate the impact of research funding or to evaluate the success of research projects. By presenting the findings and outcomes of a study, research reports can show the value of research to funders and stakeholders.
• Enhancing professional development : Research reports can be used to enhance professional development by providing a source of information and learning for researchers and practitioners in a particular field. For example, a research report on a new teaching methodology could provide insights and ideas for educators to incorporate into their own practice.

How to write Research Report

Here are some steps you can follow to write a research report:

• Identify the research question: The first step in writing a research report is to identify your research question. This will help you focus your research and organize your findings.
• Conduct research : Once you have identified your research question, you will need to conduct research to gather relevant data and information. This can involve conducting experiments, reviewing literature, or analyzing data.
• Organize your findings: Once you have gathered all of your data, you will need to organize your findings in a way that is clear and understandable. This can involve creating tables, graphs, or charts to illustrate your results.
• Write the report: Once you have organized your findings, you can begin writing the report. Start with an introduction that provides background information and explains the purpose of your research. Next, provide a detailed description of your research methods and findings. Finally, summarize your results and draw conclusions based on your findings.
• Proofread and edit: After you have written your report, be sure to proofread and edit it carefully. Check for grammar and spelling errors, and make sure that your report is well-organized and easy to read.
• Include a reference list: Be sure to include a list of references that you used in your research. This will give credit to your sources and allow readers to further explore the topic if they choose.
• Format your report: Finally, format your report according to the guidelines provided by your instructor or organization. This may include formatting requirements for headings, margins, fonts, and spacing.

Purpose of Research Report

The purpose of a research report is to communicate the results of a research study to a specific audience, such as peers in the same field, stakeholders, or the general public. The report provides a detailed description of the research methods, findings, and conclusions.

Some common purposes of a research report include:

• Sharing knowledge: A research report allows researchers to share their findings and knowledge with others in their field. This helps to advance the field and improve the understanding of a particular topic.
• Identifying trends: A research report can identify trends and patterns in data, which can help guide future research and inform decision-making.
• Addressing problems: A research report can provide insights into problems or issues and suggest solutions or recommendations for addressing them.
• Evaluating programs or interventions : A research report can evaluate the effectiveness of programs or interventions, which can inform decision-making about whether to continue, modify, or discontinue them.
• Meeting regulatory requirements: In some fields, research reports are required to meet regulatory requirements, such as in the case of drug trials or environmental impact studies.

When to Write Research Report

A research report should be written after completing the research study. This includes collecting data, analyzing the results, and drawing conclusions based on the findings. Once the research is complete, the report should be written in a timely manner while the information is still fresh in the researcher’s mind.

In academic settings, research reports are often required as part of coursework or as part of a thesis or dissertation. In this case, the report should be written according to the guidelines provided by the instructor or institution.

In other settings, such as in industry or government, research reports may be required to inform decision-making or to comply with regulatory requirements. In these cases, the report should be written as soon as possible after the research is completed in order to inform decision-making in a timely manner.

Overall, the timing of when to write a research report depends on the purpose of the research, the expectations of the audience, and any regulatory requirements that need to be met. However, it is important to complete the report in a timely manner while the information is still fresh in the researcher’s mind.

Characteristics of Research Report

There are several characteristics of a research report that distinguish it from other types of writing. These characteristics include:

• Objective: A research report should be written in an objective and unbiased manner. It should present the facts and findings of the research study without any personal opinions or biases.
• Systematic: A research report should be written in a systematic manner. It should follow a clear and logical structure, and the information should be presented in a way that is easy to understand and follow.
• Detailed: A research report should be detailed and comprehensive. It should provide a thorough description of the research methods, results, and conclusions.
• Accurate : A research report should be accurate and based on sound research methods. The findings and conclusions should be supported by data and evidence.
• Organized: A research report should be well-organized. It should include headings and subheadings to help the reader navigate the report and understand the main points.
• Clear and concise: A research report should be written in clear and concise language. The information should be presented in a way that is easy to understand, and unnecessary jargon should be avoided.
• Citations and references: A research report should include citations and references to support the findings and conclusions. This helps to give credit to other researchers and to provide readers with the opportunity to further explore the topic.

Advantages of Research Report

Research reports have several advantages, including:

• Communicating research findings: Research reports allow researchers to communicate their findings to a wider audience, including other researchers, stakeholders, and the general public. This helps to disseminate knowledge and advance the understanding of a particular topic.
• Providing evidence for decision-making : Research reports can provide evidence to inform decision-making, such as in the case of policy-making, program planning, or product development. The findings and conclusions can help guide decisions and improve outcomes.
• Supporting further research: Research reports can provide a foundation for further research on a particular topic. Other researchers can build on the findings and conclusions of the report, which can lead to further discoveries and advancements in the field.
• Demonstrating expertise: Research reports can demonstrate the expertise of the researchers and their ability to conduct rigorous and high-quality research. This can be important for securing funding, promotions, and other professional opportunities.
• Meeting regulatory requirements: In some fields, research reports are required to meet regulatory requirements, such as in the case of drug trials or environmental impact studies. Producing a high-quality research report can help ensure compliance with these requirements.

Limitations of Research Report

Despite their advantages, research reports also have some limitations, including:

• Time-consuming: Conducting research and writing a report can be a time-consuming process, particularly for large-scale studies. This can limit the frequency and speed of producing research reports.
• Expensive: Conducting research and producing a report can be expensive, particularly for studies that require specialized equipment, personnel, or data. This can limit the scope and feasibility of some research studies.
• Limited generalizability: Research studies often focus on a specific population or context, which can limit the generalizability of the findings to other populations or contexts.
• Potential bias : Researchers may have biases or conflicts of interest that can influence the findings and conclusions of the research study. Additionally, participants may also have biases or may not be representative of the larger population, which can limit the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Accessibility: Research reports may be written in technical or academic language, which can limit their accessibility to a wider audience. Additionally, some research may be behind paywalls or require specialized access, which can limit the ability of others to read and use the findings.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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• Research Report: Definition, Types + [Writing Guide]

One of the reasons for carrying out research is to add to the existing body of knowledge. Therefore, when conducting research, you need to document your processes and findings in a research report. 

With a research report, it is easy to outline the findings of your systematic investigation and any gaps needing further inquiry. Knowing how to create a detailed research report will prove useful when you need to conduct research.  

What is a Research Report?

A research report is a well-crafted document that outlines the processes, data, and findings of a systematic investigation. It is an important document that serves as a first-hand account of the research process, and it is typically considered an objective and accurate source of information.

In many ways, a research report can be considered as a summary of the research process that clearly highlights findings, recommendations, and other important details. Reading a well-written research report should provide you with all the information you need about the core areas of the research process.

Features of a Research Report 

So how do you recognize a research report when you see one? Here are some of the basic features that define a research report. 

• It is a detailed presentation of research processes and findings, and it usually includes tables and graphs. 
• It is written in a formal language.
• A research report is usually written in the third person.
• It is informative and based on first-hand verifiable information.
• It is formally structured with headings, sections, and bullet points.
• It always includes recommendations for future actions. 

Types of Research Report 

The research report is classified based on two things; nature of research and target audience.

Nature of Research

• Qualitative Research Report

This is the type of report written for qualitative research . It outlines the methods, processes, and findings of a qualitative method of systematic investigation. In educational research, a qualitative research report provides an opportunity for one to apply his or her knowledge and develop skills in planning and executing qualitative research projects.

A qualitative research report is usually descriptive in nature. Hence, in addition to presenting details of the research process, you must also create a descriptive narrative of the information.

• Quantitative Research Report

A quantitative research report is a type of research report that is written for quantitative research. Quantitative research is a type of systematic investigation that pays attention to numerical or statistical values in a bid to find answers to research questions. 

In this type of research report, the researcher presents quantitative data to support the research process and findings. Unlike a qualitative research report that is mainly descriptive, a quantitative research report works with numbers; that is, it is numerical in nature. 

Target Audience

Also, a research report can be said to be technical or popular based on the target audience. If you’re dealing with a general audience, you would need to present a popular research report, and if you’re dealing with a specialized audience, you would submit a technical report. 

• Technical Research Report

A technical research report is a detailed document that you present after carrying out industry-based research. This report is highly specialized because it provides information for a technical audience; that is, individuals with above-average knowledge in the field of study. 

In a technical research report, the researcher is expected to provide specific information about the research process, including statistical analyses and sampling methods. Also, the use of language is highly specialized and filled with jargon. 

Examples of technical research reports include legal and medical research reports. 

• Popular Research Report

A popular research report is one for a general audience; that is, for individuals who do not necessarily have any knowledge in the field of study. A popular research report aims to make information accessible to everyone. 

It is written in very simple language, which makes it easy to understand the findings and recommendations. Examples of popular research reports are the information contained in newspapers and magazines. 

Importance of a Research Report 

• Knowledge Transfer: As already stated above, one of the reasons for carrying out research is to contribute to the existing body of knowledge, and this is made possible with a research report. A research report serves as a means to effectively communicate the findings of a systematic investigation to all and sundry.  
• Identification of Knowledge Gaps: With a research report, you’d be able to identify knowledge gaps for further inquiry. A research report shows what has been done while hinting at other areas needing systematic investigation. 
• In market research, a research report would help you understand the market needs and peculiarities at a glance. 
• A research report allows you to present information in a precise and concise manner. 
• It is time-efficient and practical because, in a research report, you do not have to spend time detailing the findings of your research work in person. You can easily send out the report via email and have stakeholders look at it. 

Guide to Writing a Research Report

A lot of detail goes into writing a research report, and getting familiar with the different requirements would help you create the ideal research report. A research report is usually broken down into multiple sections, which allows for a concise presentation of information.

Structure and Example of a Research Report

This is the title of your systematic investigation. Your title should be concise and point to the aims, objectives, and findings of a research report. 

• Table of Contents

This is like a compass that makes it easier for readers to navigate the research report.

An abstract is an overview that highlights all important aspects of the research including the research method, data collection process, and research findings. Think of an abstract as a summary of your research report that presents pertinent information in a concise manner. 

An abstract is always brief; typically 100-150 words and goes straight to the point. The focus of your research abstract should be the 5Ws and 1H format – What, Where, Why, When, Who and How. 

• Introduction

Here, the researcher highlights the aims and objectives of the systematic investigation as well as the problem which the systematic investigation sets out to solve. When writing the report introduction, it is also essential to indicate whether the purposes of the research were achieved or would require more work.

In the introduction section, the researcher specifies the research problem and also outlines the significance of the systematic investigation. Also, the researcher is expected to outline any jargons and terminologies that are contained in the research.  

• Literature Review

A literature review is a written survey of existing knowledge in the field of study. In other words, it is the section where you provide an overview and analysis of different research works that are relevant to your systematic investigation. 

It highlights existing research knowledge and areas needing further investigation, which your research has sought to fill. At this stage, you can also hint at your research hypothesis and its possible implications for the existing body of knowledge in your field of study. 

• An Account of Investigation

This is a detailed account of the research process, including the methodology, sample, and research subjects. Here, you are expected to provide in-depth information on the research process including the data collection and analysis procedures. 

In a quantitative research report, you’d need to provide information surveys, questionnaires and other quantitative data collection methods used in your research. In a qualitative research report, you are expected to describe the qualitative data collection methods used in your research including interviews and focus groups. 

In this section, you are expected to present the results of the systematic investigation. 

This section further explains the findings of the research, earlier outlined. Here, you are expected to present a justification for each outcome and show whether the results are in line with your hypotheses or if other research studies have come up with similar results.

• Conclusions

This is a summary of all the information in the report. It also outlines the significance of the entire study. 

• References and Appendices

This section contains a list of all the primary and secondary research sources. 

Tips for Writing a Research Report

• Define the Context for the Report

As is obtainable when writing an essay, defining the context for your research report would help you create a detailed yet concise document. This is why you need to create an outline before writing so that you do not miss out on anything. 

• Define your Audience

Writing with your audience in mind is essential as it determines the tone of the report. If you’re writing for a general audience, you would want to present the information in a simple and relatable manner. For a specialized audience, you would need to make use of technical and field-specific terms. 

• Include Significant Findings

The idea of a research report is to present some sort of abridged version of your systematic investigation. In your report, you should exclude irrelevant information while highlighting only important data and findings. 

• Include Illustrations

Your research report should include illustrations and other visual representations of your data. Graphs, pie charts, and relevant images lend additional credibility to your systematic investigation.

• Choose the Right Title

A good research report title is brief, precise, and contains keywords from your research. It should provide a clear idea of your systematic investigation so that readers can grasp the entire focus of your research from the title. 

• Proofread the Report

Before publishing the document, ensure that you give it a second look to authenticate the information. If you can, get someone else to go through the report, too, and you can also run it through proofreading and editing software. 

How to Gather Research Data for Your Report  

• Understand the Problem

Every research aims at solving a specific problem or set of problems, and this should be at the back of your mind when writing your research report. Understanding the problem would help you to filter the information you have and include only important data in your report. 

• Know what your report seeks to achieve

This is somewhat similar to the point above because, in some way, the aim of your research report is intertwined with the objectives of your systematic investigation. Identifying the primary purpose of writing a research report would help you to identify and present the required information accordingly. 

• Identify your audience

Knowing your target audience plays a crucial role in data collection for a research report. If your research report is specifically for an organization, you would want to present industry-specific information or show how the research findings are relevant to the work that the company does. 

• Create Surveys/Questionnaires

A survey is a research method that is used to gather data from a specific group of people through a set of questions. It can be either quantitative or qualitative. 

A survey is usually made up of structured questions, and it can be administered online or offline. However, an online survey is a more effective method of research data collection because it helps you save time and gather data with ease. 

You can seamlessly create an online questionnaire for your research on Formplus . With the multiple sharing options available in the builder, you would be able to administer your survey to respondents in little or no time. 

Formplus also has a report summary too l that you can use to create custom visual reports for your research.

Step-by-step guide on how to create an online questionnaire using Formplus  

• Sign into Formplus

In the Formplus builder, you can easily create different online questionnaires for your research by dragging and dropping preferred fields into your form. To access the Formplus builder, you will need to create an account on Formplus. 

Once you do this, sign in to your account and click on Create new form to begin. 

• Edit Form Title : Click on the field provided to input your form title, for example, “Research Questionnaire.”
• Edit Form : Click on the edit icon to edit the form.
• Add Fields : Drag and drop preferred form fields into your form in the Formplus builder inputs column. There are several field input options for questionnaires in the Formplus builder. 
• Edit fields
• Click on “Save”
• Form Customization: With the form customization options in the form builder, you can easily change the outlook of your form and make it more unique and personalized. Formplus allows you to change your form theme, add background images, and even change the font according to your needs. 
• Multiple Sharing Options: Formplus offers various form-sharing options, which enables you to share your questionnaire with respondents easily. You can use the direct social media sharing buttons to share your form link to your organization’s social media pages.  You can also send out your survey form as email invitations to your research subjects too. If you wish, you can share your form’s QR code or embed it on your organization’s website for easy access. 

Conclusion  

Always remember that a research report is just as important as the actual systematic investigation because it plays a vital role in communicating research findings to everyone else. This is why you must take care to create a concise document summarizing the process of conducting any research. 

In this article, we’ve outlined essential tips to help you create a research report. When writing your report, you should always have the audience at the back of your mind, as this would set the tone for the document. 

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Home Market Research

Research Reports: Definition and How to Write Them

Reports are usually spread across a vast horizon of topics but are focused on communicating information about a particular topic and a niche target market. The primary motive of research reports is to convey integral details about a study for marketers to consider while designing new strategies.

Certain events, facts, and other information based on incidents need to be relayed to the people in charge, and creating research reports is the most effective communication tool. Ideal research reports are extremely accurate in the offered information with a clear objective and conclusion. These reports should have a clean and structured format to relay information effectively.

What are Research Reports?

Research reports are recorded data prepared by researchers or statisticians after analyzing the information gathered by conducting organized research, typically in the form of surveys or qualitative methods .

A research report is a reliable source to recount details about a conducted research. It is most often considered to be a true testimony of all the work done to garner specificities of research.

The various sections of a research report are:

• Background/Introduction
• Implemented Methods
• Results based on Analysis
• Deliberation

Learn more: Quantitative Research

Components of Research Reports

Research is imperative for launching a new product/service or a new feature. The markets today are extremely volatile and competitive due to new entrants every day who may or may not provide effective products. An organization needs to make the right decisions at the right time to be relevant in such a market with updated products that suffice customer demands.

The details of a research report may change with the purpose of research but the main components of a report will remain constant. The research approach of the market researcher also influences the style of writing reports. Here are seven main components of a productive research report:

• Research Report Summary: The entire objective along with the overview of research are to be included in a summary which is a couple of paragraphs in length. All the multiple components of the research are explained in brief under the report summary.  It should be interesting enough to capture all the key elements of the report.
• Research Introduction: There always is a primary goal that the researcher is trying to achieve through a report. In the introduction section, he/she can cover answers related to this goal and establish a thesis which will be included to strive and answer it in detail.  This section should answer an integral question: “What is the current situation of the goal?”.  After the research design was conducted, did the organization conclude the goal successfully or they are still a work in progress –  provide such details in the introduction part of the research report.
• Research Methodology: This is the most important section of the report where all the important information lies. The readers can gain data for the topic along with analyzing the quality of provided content and the research can also be approved by other market researchers . Thus, this section needs to be highly informative with each aspect of research discussed in detail.  Information needs to be expressed in chronological order according to its priority and importance. Researchers should include references in case they gained information from existing techniques.
• Research Results: A short description of the results along with calculations conducted to achieve the goal will form this section of results. Usually, the exposition after data analysis is carried out in the discussion part of the report.

Learn more: Quantitative Data

• Research Discussion: The results are discussed in extreme detail in this section along with a comparative analysis of reports that could probably exist in the same domain. Any abnormality uncovered during research will be deliberated in the discussion section.  While writing research reports, the researcher will have to connect the dots on how the results will be applicable in the real world.
• Research References and Conclusion: Conclude all the research findings along with mentioning each and every author, article or any content piece from where references were taken.

Learn more: Qualitative Observation

15 Tips for Writing Research Reports

Writing research reports in the manner can lead to all the efforts going down the drain. Here are 15 tips for writing impactful research reports:

• Prepare the context before starting to write and start from the basics:  This was always taught to us in school – be well-prepared before taking a plunge into new topics. The order of survey questions might not be the ideal or most effective order for writing research reports. The idea is to start with a broader topic and work towards a more specific one and focus on a conclusion or support, which a research should support with the facts.  The most difficult thing to do in reporting, without a doubt is to start. Start with the title, the introduction, then document the first discoveries and continue from that. Once the marketers have the information well documented, they can write a general conclusion.
• Keep the target audience in mind while selecting a format that is clear, logical and obvious to them:  Will the research reports be presented to decision makers or other researchers? What are the general perceptions around that topic? This requires more care and diligence. A researcher will need a significant amount of information to start writing the research report. Be consistent with the wording, the numbering of the annexes and so on. Follow the approved format of the company for the delivery of research reports and demonstrate the integrity of the project with the objectives of the company.
• Have a clear research objective: A researcher should read the entire proposal again, and make sure that the data they provide contributes to the objectives that were raised from the beginning. Remember that speculations are for conversations, not for research reports, if a researcher speculates, they directly question their own research.
• Establish a working model:  Each study must have an internal logic, which will have to be established in the report and in the evidence. The researchers’ worst nightmare is to be required to write research reports and realize that key questions were not included.

Learn more: Quantitative Observation

• Gather all the information about the research topic. Who are the competitors of our customers? Talk to other researchers who have studied the subject of research, know the language of the industry. Misuse of the terms can discourage the readers of research reports from reading further.
• Read aloud while writing. While reading the report, if the researcher hears something inappropriate, for example, if they stumble over the words when reading them, surely the reader will too. If the researcher can’t put an idea in a single sentence, then it is very long and they must change it so that the idea is clear to everyone.
• Check grammar and spelling. Without a doubt, good practices help to understand the report. Use verbs in the present tense. Consider using the present tense, which makes the results sound more immediate. Find new words and other ways of saying things. Have fun with the language whenever possible.
• Discuss only the discoveries that are significant. If some data are not really significant, do not mention them. Remember that not everything is truly important or essential within research reports.

Learn more: Qualitative Data

• Try and stick to the survey questions. For example, do not say that the people surveyed “were worried” about an research issue , when there are different degrees of concern.
• The graphs must be clear enough so that they understand themselves. Do not let graphs lead the reader to make mistakes: give them a title, include the indications, the size of the sample, and the correct wording of the question.
• Be clear with messages. A researcher should always write every section of the report with an accuracy of details and language.
• Be creative with titles – Particularly in segmentation studies choose names “that give life to research”. Such names can survive for a long time after the initial investigation.
• Create an effective conclusion: The conclusion in the research reports is the most difficult to write, but it is an incredible opportunity to excel. Make a precise summary. Sometimes it helps to start the conclusion with something specific, then it describes the most important part of the study, and finally, it provides the implications of the conclusions.
• Get a couple more pair of eyes to read the report. Writers have trouble detecting their own mistakes. But they are responsible for what is presented. Ensure it has been approved by colleagues or friends before sending the find draft out.

Learn more: Market Research and Analysis

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Writing up a Research Report

• First Online: 04 January 2024

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• Stefan Hunziker 3 &
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A research report is one big argument about how and why you came up with your conclusions. To make it a convincing argument, a typical guiding structure has developed. In the different chapters, there are distinct issues that need to be addressed to explain to the reader why your conclusions are valid. The governing principle for writing the report is full disclosure: to explain everything and ensure replicability by another researcher.

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Barros, L. O. (2016). The only academic phrasebook you’ll ever need . Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.

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Field, A. (2016). An adventure in statistics. The reality enigma . SAGE.

Field, A. (2020). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th ed.). SAGE.

Früh, M., Keimer, I., & Blankenagel, M. (2019). The impact of Balanced Scorecard excellence on shareholder returns. IFZ Working Paper No. 0003/2019. https://zenodo.org/record/2571603#.YMDUafkzZaQ . Accessed: 9 June 2021.

Pearl, J., & Mackenzie, D. (2018). The book of why: The new science of cause and effect. Basic Books.

Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). SAGE.

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11.1 The Purpose of Research Writing

Learning objectives.

• Identify reasons to research writing projects.
• Outline the steps of the research writing process.

Why was the Great Wall of China built? What have scientists learned about the possibility of life on Mars? What roles did women play in the American Revolution? How does the human brain create, store, and retrieve memories? Who invented the game of football, and how has it changed over the years?

You may know the answers to these questions off the top of your head. If you are like most people, however, you find answers to tough questions like these by searching the Internet, visiting the library, or asking others for information. To put it simply, you perform research.

Whether you are a scientist, an artist, a paralegal, or a parent, you probably perform research in your everyday life. When your boss, your instructor, or a family member asks you a question that you do not know the answer to, you locate relevant information, analyze your findings, and share your results. Locating, analyzing, and sharing information are key steps in the research process, and in this chapter, you will learn more about each step. By developing your research writing skills, you will prepare yourself to answer any question no matter how challenging.

Reasons for Research

When you perform research, you are essentially trying to solve a mystery—you want to know how something works or why something happened. In other words, you want to answer a question that you (and other people) have about the world. This is one of the most basic reasons for performing research.

But the research process does not end when you have solved your mystery. Imagine what would happen if a detective collected enough evidence to solve a criminal case, but she never shared her solution with the authorities. Presenting what you have learned from research can be just as important as performing the research. Research results can be presented in a variety of ways, but one of the most popular—and effective—presentation forms is the research paper . A research paper presents an original thesis, or purpose statement, about a topic and develops that thesis with information gathered from a variety of sources.

If you are curious about the possibility of life on Mars, for example, you might choose to research the topic. What will you do, though, when your research is complete? You will need a way to put your thoughts together in a logical, coherent manner. You may want to use the facts you have learned to create a narrative or to support an argument. And you may want to show the results of your research to your friends, your teachers, or even the editors of magazines and journals. Writing a research paper is an ideal way to organize thoughts, craft narratives or make arguments based on research, and share your newfound knowledge with the world.

Write a paragraph about a time when you used research in your everyday life. Did you look for the cheapest way to travel from Houston to Denver? Did you search for a way to remove gum from the bottom of your shoe? In your paragraph, explain what you wanted to research, how you performed the research, and what you learned as a result.

Research Writing and the Academic Paper

No matter what field of study you are interested in, you will most likely be asked to write a research paper during your academic career. For example, a student in an art history course might write a research paper about an artist’s work. Similarly, a student in a psychology course might write a research paper about current findings in childhood development.

Having to write a research paper may feel intimidating at first. After all, researching and writing a long paper requires a lot of time, effort, and organization. However, writing a research paper can also be a great opportunity to explore a topic that is particularly interesting to you. The research process allows you to gain expertise on a topic of your choice, and the writing process helps you remember what you have learned and understand it on a deeper level.

Research Writing at Work

Knowing how to write a good research paper is a valuable skill that will serve you well throughout your career. Whether you are developing a new product, studying the best way to perform a procedure, or learning about challenges and opportunities in your field of employment, you will use research techniques to guide your exploration. You may even need to create a written report of your findings. And because effective communication is essential to any company, employers seek to hire people who can write clearly and professionally.

Writing at Work

Take a few minutes to think about each of the following careers. How might each of these professionals use researching and research writing skills on the job?

• Medical laboratory technician
• Small business owner
• Information technology professional
• Freelance magazine writer

A medical laboratory technician or information technology professional might do research to learn about the latest technological developments in either of these fields. A small business owner might conduct research to learn about the latest trends in his or her industry. A freelance magazine writer may need to research a given topic to write an informed, up-to-date article.

Think about the job of your dreams. How might you use research writing skills to perform that job? Create a list of ways in which strong researching, organizing, writing, and critical thinking skills could help you succeed at your dream job. How might these skills help you obtain that job?

Steps of the Research Writing Process

How does a research paper grow from a folder of brainstormed notes to a polished final draft? No two projects are identical, but most projects follow a series of six basic steps.

These are the steps in the research writing process:

• Choose a topic.
• Plan and schedule time to research and write.
• Conduct research.
• Organize research and ideas.
• Draft your paper.
• Revise and edit your paper.

Each of these steps will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter. For now, though, we will take a brief look at what each step involves.

Step 1: Choosing a Topic

As you may recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , to narrow the focus of your topic, you may try freewriting exercises, such as brainstorming. You may also need to ask a specific research question —a broad, open-ended question that will guide your research—as well as propose a possible answer, or a working thesis . You may use your research question and your working thesis to create a research proposal . In a research proposal, you present your main research question, any related subquestions you plan to explore, and your working thesis.

Step 2: Planning and Scheduling

Before you start researching your topic, take time to plan your researching and writing schedule. Research projects can take days, weeks, or even months to complete. Creating a schedule is a good way to ensure that you do not end up being overwhelmed by all the work you have to do as the deadline approaches.

During this step of the process, it is also a good idea to plan the resources and organizational tools you will use to keep yourself on track throughout the project. Flowcharts, calendars, and checklists can all help you stick to your schedule. See Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , Section 11.2 “Steps in Developing a Research Proposal” for an example of a research schedule.

Step 3: Conducting Research

When going about your research, you will likely use a variety of sources—anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews.

Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources . Primary sources provide firsthand information or raw data. For example, surveys, in-person interviews, and historical documents are primary sources. Secondary sources, such as biographies, literary reviews, or magazine articles, include some analysis or interpretation of the information presented. As you conduct research, you will take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries. You will also evaluate the reliability of each source you find.

Step 4: Organizing Research and the Writer’s Ideas

When your research is complete, you will organize your findings and decide which sources to cite in your paper. You will also have an opportunity to evaluate the evidence you have collected and determine whether it supports your thesis, or the focus of your paper. You may decide to adjust your thesis or conduct additional research to ensure that your thesis is well supported.

Remember, your working thesis is not set in stone. You can and should change your working thesis throughout the research writing process if the evidence you find does not support your original thesis. Never try to force evidence to fit your argument. For example, your working thesis is “Mars cannot support life-forms.” Yet, a week into researching your topic, you find an article in the New York Times detailing new findings of bacteria under the Martian surface. Instead of trying to argue that bacteria are not life forms, you might instead alter your thesis to “Mars cannot support complex life-forms.”

Step 5: Drafting Your Paper

Now you are ready to combine your research findings with your critical analysis of the results in a rough draft. You will incorporate source materials into your paper and discuss each source thoughtfully in relation to your thesis or purpose statement.

When you cite your reference sources, it is important to pay close attention to standard conventions for citing sources in order to avoid plagiarism , or the practice of using someone else’s words without acknowledging the source. Later in this chapter, you will learn how to incorporate sources in your paper and avoid some of the most common pitfalls of attributing information.

Step 6: Revising and Editing Your Paper

In the final step of the research writing process, you will revise and polish your paper. You might reorganize your paper’s structure or revise for unity and cohesion, ensuring that each element in your paper flows into the next logically and naturally. You will also make sure that your paper uses an appropriate and consistent tone.

Once you feel confident in the strength of your writing, you will edit your paper for proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and formatting. When you complete this final step, you will have transformed a simple idea or question into a thoroughly researched and well-written paper you can be proud of!

Review the steps of the research writing process. Then answer the questions on your own sheet of paper.

• In which steps of the research writing process are you allowed to change your thesis?
• In step 2, which types of information should you include in your project schedule?
• What might happen if you eliminated step 4 from the research writing process?

Key Takeaways

• People undertake research projects throughout their academic and professional careers in order to answer specific questions, share their findings with others, increase their understanding of challenging topics, and strengthen their researching, writing, and analytical skills.
• The research writing process generally comprises six steps: choosing a topic, scheduling and planning time for research and writing, conducting research, organizing research and ideas, drafting a paper, and revising and editing the paper.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• Research Report
• Post last modified: 11 January 2022
• Reading time: 25 mins read
• Post category: Research Methodology

What is Research Report?

Research reporting is the oral or written presentation of the findings in such detail and form as to be readily understood and assessed by the society, economy or particularly by the researchers.

As earlier said that it is the final stage of the research process and its purpose is to convey to interested persons the whole result of the study. Report writing is common to both academic and managerial situations. In academics, a research report is prepared for comprehensive and application-oriented learning. In businesses or organisations, reports are used for the basis of decision making.

Table of Content

• 1 What is Research Report?
• 2 Research Report Definition
• 3.1 Preliminary Part
• 3.2 Introduction of the Report
• 3.3 Review of Literature
• 3.4 The Research Methodology
• 3.5 Results
• 3.6 Concluding Remarks
• 3.7 Bibliography
• 4 Significance of Report Writing
• 5 Qualities of Good Report
• 6.1 Analysis of the subject matter
• 6.2 Research outline
• 6.3 Preparation of rough draft
• 6.4 Rewriting and polishing
• 6.5 Writing the final draft
• 7 Precautions for Writing Research Reports
• 8.1.1 Technical Report
• 8.1.2 Popular Report
• 8.2.1 Written Report
• 8.2.2 Oral Report

Research Report Definition

According to C. A. Brown , “A report is a communication from someone who has information to someone who wants to use that information.”

According to Goode and Hatt , “The preparation of report is the final stage of research, and it’s purpose is to convey to the interested persons the whole result of the study, in sufficient detail and so arranged as to enable each reader to comprehend the data and to determine for himself the validity of the conclusions.”

It is clear from the above definitions of a research report, it is a brief account of the problem of investigation, the justification of its selection and the procedure of analysis and interpretation. It is only a summary of the entire research proceedings.

In other words, it can be defined as written documents, which presents information in a specialized and concise manner.

Contents of Research Report

Although no hard and fast rules can be laid down, the report must contain the following points.

• Acknowledgement
• Table of contents
• List of tables
• List of graphs
• Introduction
• Background of the research study
• Statement of the problem
• Brief outline of the chapters
• Books review
• Review of articles published in books, journals, periodicals, etc
• Review of articles published in leading newspapers
• Working papers / discusssion paper / study reports
• Articles on authorised websites
• A broad conclusion and indications for further research
• The theoretical framework (variables)
• Model / hypothesis
• Instruments for data collection
• Data collection
• Pilot study
• Processing of data
• Hypothesis / model testing
• Data analysis and interpretation
• Tables and figures
• Conclusions
• Shortcomings
• Suggestions to the problems
• Direction for further research

Preliminary Part

The preliminary part may have seven major components – cover, title, preface, acknowledgement, table of contents, list of tables, list of graphs. Long reports presented in book form have a cover made up of a card sheet. The cover contains title of the research report, the authority to whom the report is submitted, name of the author, etc.

The preface introduces the report to the readers. It gives a very brief introduction of the report. In the acknowledgements author mention names of persons and organisations that have extended co-operation and helped in the various stages of research. Table of contents is essential. It gives the title and page number of each chapter.

Introduction of the Report

The introduction of the research report should clearly and logically bring out the background of the problem addressed in the research. The purpose of the introduction is to introduce the research project to the readers. A clear statement of the problem with specific questions to be answered is presented in the introduction. It contains a brief outline of the chapters.

Review of Literature

The third section reviews the important literature related to the study. A comprehensive review of the research literature referred to must be made. Previous research studies and the important writings in the area under study should be reviewed. Review of literature is helpful to provide a background for the development of the present study.

The researcher may review concerned books, articles published in edited books, journals and periodicals. Researcher may also take review of articles published in leading newspapers. A researcher should study working papers/discussion papers/study reports. It is essential for a broad conclusion and indications for further research.

The Research Methodology

Research methodology is an integral part of the research. It should clearly indicate the universe and the selection of samples, techniques of data collection, analysis and interpretation, statistical techniques, etc.

Results contain pilot study, processing of data, hypothesis/model testing, data analysis and interpretation, tables and figures, etc. This is the heart of the research report. If a pilot study is planned to be used, it’s purpose should be given in the research methodology.

The collected data and the information should be edited, coded, tabulated and analysed with a view to arriving at a valid and authentic conclusion. Tables and figures are used to clarify the significant relationship. The results obtained through tables, graphs should be critically interpreted.

Concluding Remarks

The concluding remarks should discuss the results obtained in the earlier sections, as well as their usefulness and implications. It contains findings, conclusions, shortcomings, suggestions to the problem and direction for future research. Findings are statements of factual information based upon the data analysis.

Conclusions must clearly explain whether the hypothesis have been established and rejected. This part requires great expertise and preciseness. A report should also refer to the limitations of the applicability of the research inferences. It is essential to suggest the theoretical, practical and policy implications of the research. The suggestions should be supported by scientific and logical arguments. The future direction of research based on the work completed should also be outlined.

Bibliography

The bibliography is an alphabetic list of books, journal articles, reports, etc, published or unpublished, read, referred to, examined by the researcher in preparing the report. The bibliography should follow standard formats for books, journal articles, research reports.

The end of the research report may consist of appendices, listed in respect of all technical data. Appendices are for the purpose of providing detailed data or information that would be too cumbersome within the main body of the research report.

Significance of Report Writing

Report writing is an important communication medium in organisations. The most crucial findings might have come out through a research report. Report is common to academics and managers also. Reports are used for comprehensive and application oriented learning in academics. In organisations, reports are used for the basis of decision making. The importance of report writing can be discussed as under.

Through research reports, a manager or an executive can quickly get an idea of a current scenario which improves his information base for making sound decisions affecting future operations of the company or enterprise. The research report acts as a means of communication of various research findings to the interested parties, organisations and general public.

Good report writing play, a significant role of conveying unknown facts about the phenomenon to the concerned parties. This may provide new insights and new opportunities to the people. Research report plays a key role in making effective decisions in marketing, production, banking, materials, human resource development and government also. Good report writing is used for economic planning and optimum utilisation of resources for the development of a nation.

Report writing facilitates the validation of generalisation. A research report is an end product of research. As earlier said that report writing provides useful information in arriving at rational decisions that may reform the business and society. The findings, conclusions, suggestions and recommendations are useful to academicians, scholars and policymakers. Report writing provides reference material for further research in the same or similar areas of research to the concerned parties.

While preparing a research report, a researcher should take some proper precautions. Report writing should be simple, lucid and systematic. Report writing should be written speedily without interrupting the continuity of thought. The report writing should sustain the interest of readers.

Qualities of Good Report

Report writing is a highly skilled job. It is a process of analysing, understanding and consolidating the findings and projecting a meaningful view of the phenomenon studied. A good report writing is essential for effective communication.

Following are the essential qualities of good report:

• A research report is essentially a scientific documentation. It should have a suggestive title, headings and sub-headings, paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence.
• Good research report should include everything that is relevant and exclude everything that is irrelevant. It means that it should contain the facts rather than opinion.
• The language of the report should be simple and unambiguous. It means that it should be free from biases of the researchers derived from the past experience. Confusion, pretentiousness and pomposity should be carefully guarded against. It means that the language of the report should be simple, employing appropriate words, idioms and expressions.
• The report must be free from grammatical mistakes. It must be grammatically accurate. Faulty construction of sentences makes the meaning of the narrative obscure and ambiguous.
• The report has to take into consideration two facts. Firstly, for whom the report is meant and secondly, what is his level of knowledge. The report has to look to the subject matter of the report and the fact as to the level of knowledge of the person for whom it is meant. Because all reports are not meant for research scholars.

Steps in Writing Research Report

Report writing is a time consuming and expensive exercise. Therefore, reports have to be very sharply focused in purpose content and readership. There is no single universally acceptable method of writing a research report.

Following are the general steps in writing a research report:

Analysis of the subject matter

Research outline, preparation of rough draft, rewriting and polishing, writing the final draft.

This is the first and important step in writing a research report. It is concerned with the development of a subject. Subject matter should be written in a clear, logical and concise manner. The style adopted should be open, straightforward and dignified and folk style language should be avoided.

The data, the reliability and validity of the results of the statistical analysis should be in the form of tables, figures and equations. All redundancy in the data or results presented should be eliminated.

The research outline is an organisational framework prepared by the researcher well in advance. It is an aid to logical organisation of material and a reminder of the points to be stressed in the report. In the process of writing, if need be, outline may be revised accordingly.

Time and place of the study, scope and limitations of the study, study design, summary of pilot study, methods of data collection, analysis interpretation, etc., may be included in a research outline.

Having prepared the primary and secondary data, the researcher has to prepare a rough draft. While preparing the rough draft, the researcher should keep the objectives of the research in mind, and focus on one objective at a time. The researcher should make a checklist of the important points that are necessary to be covered in the manuscript. A researcher should use dictionary and relevant reference materials as and when required.

This is an important step in writing a research report. It takes more time than a rough draft. While rewriting and polishing, a researcher should check the report for weakness in logical development or presentation. He should take breaks in between rewriting and polishing since this gives the time to incubate the ideas.

The last and important step is writing the final draft. The language of the report should be simple, employing appropriate words and expressions and should avoid vague expressions such as ‘it seems’ and ‘there may be’ etc.

It should not used personal pronouns, such as I, We, My, Us, etc and should substitute these by such expressions as a researcher, investigator, etc. Before the final drafting of the report, it is advisable that the researcher should prepare a first draft for critical considerations and possible improvements. It will be helpful in writing the final draft. Finally, the report should be logically outlined with the future directions of the research based on the work completed.

Precautions for Writing Research Reports

A research report is a means of conveying the research study to a specific target audience. The following precautions should be taken while preparing a research report:

• Its hould belong enough to cover the subject and short enough to preserve interest.
• It should not be dull and complicated.
• It should be simple, without the usage of abstract terms and technical jargons.
• It should offer ready availability of findings with the help of charts, tables and graphs, as readers prefer quick knowledge of main findings.
• The layout of the report should be in accordance with the objectives of the research study.
• There should be no grammatical errors and writing should adhere to the techniques of report writing in case of quotations, footnotes and documentations.
• It should be original, intellectual and contribute to the solution of a problem or add knowledge to the concerned field.
• Appendices should been listed with respect to all the technical data in the report.
• It should be attractive, neat and clean, whether handwritten or typed.
• The report writer should refrain from confusing the possessive form of the word ‘it’ is with ‘it’s.’ The accurate possessive form of ‘it is’ is ‘its.’ The use of ‘it’s’ is the contractive form of ‘it is.
• A report should not have contractions. Examples are ‘didn’t’ or ‘it’s.’ In report writing, it is best to use the non-contractive form. Therefore, the examples would be replaced by ‘did not’ and ‘it is.’ Using ‘Figure’ instead of ‘Fig.’ and ‘Table’ instead of ‘Tab.’ will spare the reader of having to translate the abbreviations, while reading. If abbreviations are used, use them consistently throughout the report. For example, do not switch among ‘versus,’ and ‘vs’.
• It is advisable to avoid using the word ‘very’ and other such words that try to embellish a description. They do not add any extra meaning and, therefore, should be dropped.
• Repetition hampers lucidity. Report writers must avoid repeating the same word more than once within a sentence.
• When you use the word ‘this’ or ‘these’ make sure you indicate to what you are referring. This reduces the ambiguity in your writing and helps to tie sentences together.
• Do not use the word ‘they’ to refer to a singular person. You can either rewrite the sentence to avoid needing such a reference or use the singular ‘he or she.’

Types of Research Report

Research reports are designed in order to convey and record the information that will be of practical use to the reader. It is organized into distinct units of specific and highly visible information. The kind of audience addressed in the research report decides the type of report.

Research reports can be categorized on the following basis:

Classification on the Basis of Information

Classification on the basis of representation.

Following are the ways through which the results of the research report can be presented on the basis of information contained:

Technical Report

A technical report is written for other researchers. In writing the technical reports, the importance is mainly given to the methods that have been used to collect the information and data, the presumptions that are made and finally, the various presentation techniques that are used to present the findings and data.

Following are main features of a technical report:

• Summary: It covers a brief analysis of the findings of the research in a very few pages. 
• Nature: It contains the reasons for which the research is undertaken, the analysis and the data that is required in order to prepare a report. 
• Methods employed: It contains a description of the methods that were employed in order to collect the data. 
• Data: It covers a brief analysis of the various sources from which the data has been collected with their features and drawbacks 
• Analysis of data and presentation of the findings: It contains the various forms through which the data that has been analysed can be presented. 
• Conclusions: It contains a brief explanation of findings of the research. 
• Bibliography: It contains a detailed analysis of the various bibliographies that have been used in order to conduct a research. 
• Technical appendices: It contains the appendices for the technical matters and for questionnaires and mathematical derivations. 
• Index: The index of the technical report must be provided at the end of the report.

Popular Report

A popular report is formulated when there is a need to draw conclusions of the findings of the research report. One of the main points of consideration that should be kept in mind while formulating a research report is that it must be simple and attractive. It must be written in a very simple manner that is understandable to all. It must also be made attractive by using large prints, various sub-headings and by giving cartoons occasionally.

Following are the main points that must be kept in mind while preparing a popular report:

• Findings and their implications : While preparing a popular report, main importance is given to the findings of the information and the conclusions that can be drawn out of these findings.
• Recommendations for action : If there are any deviations in the report then recommendations are made for taking corrective action in order to rectify the errors.
• Objective of the study : In a popular report, the specific objective for which the research has been undertaken is presented.
• Methods employed : The report must contain the various methods that has been employed in order to conduct a research.
• Results : The results of the research findings must be presented in a suitable and appropriate manner by taking the help of charts and diagrams.
• Technical appendices : The report must contain an in-depth information used to collect the data in the form of appendices.

Following are the ways through which the results of the research report can be presented on the basis of representation:

• Writtenreport
• Oral report

Written Report

A written report plays a vital role in every business operation. The manner in which an organization writes business letters and business reports creates an impression of its standard. Therefore, the organization should emphasize on the improvement of the writing skills of the employees in order to maintain effective relations with their customers.

Writing effective written reports requires a lot of hard work. Therefore, before you begin writing, it is important to know the objective, i.e., the purpose of writing, collection and organization of required data.

Oral Report

At times, oral presentation of the results that are drawn out of research is considered effective, particularly in cases where policy recommendations are to be made. This approach proves beneficial because it provides a medium of interaction between a listener and a speaker. This leads to a better understanding of the findings and their implications.

However, the main drawback of oral presentation is the lack of any permanent records related to the research. Oral presentation of the report is also effective when it is supported with various visual devices, such as slides, wall charts and whiteboards that help in better understanding of the research reports.

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Operation Management

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Service Operations Management

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Strategic Management

• What is Strategic Management?
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• Mission Statement
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Supply Chain

• What is Supply Chain Management?
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• What is Packaging?
• What is Inventory Management?
• What is Material Handling?
• What is Order Picking?
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• What is Warehouse Design?
• What is Warehousing Costs?

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What Is a Research Paper?

• An Introduction to Punctuation

Olivia Valdes was the Associate Editorial Director for ThoughtCo. She worked with Dotdash Meredith from 2017 to 2021.

• B.A., American Studies, Yale University

A research paper is a common form of academic writing . Research papers require students and academics to locate information about a topic (that is, to conduct research ), take a stand on that topic, and provide support (or evidence) for that position in an organized report.

The term research paper may also refer to a scholarly article that contains the results of original research or an evaluation of research conducted by others. Most scholarly articles must undergo a process of peer review before they can be accepted for publication in an academic journal.

Define Your Research Question

The first step in writing a research paper is defining your research question . Has your instructor assigned a specific topic? If so, great—you've got this step covered. If not, review the guidelines of the assignment. Your instructor has likely provided several general subjects for your consideration. Your research paper should focus on a specific angle on one of these subjects. Spend some time mulling over your options before deciding which one you'd like to explore more deeply.

Try to choose a research question that interests you. The research process is time-consuming, and you'll be significantly more motivated if you have a genuine desire to learn more about the topic. You should also consider whether you have access to all of the resources necessary to conduct thorough research on your topic, such as primary and secondary sources .

Create a Research Strategy 

Approach the research process systematically by creating a research strategy. First, review your library's website. What resources are available? Where will you find them? Do any resources require a special process to gain access? Start gathering those resources—especially those that may be difficult to access—as soon as possible.

Second, make an appointment with a reference librarian . A reference librarian is nothing short of a research superhero. He or she will listen to your research question, offer suggestions for how to focus your research, and direct you toward valuable sources that directly relate to your topic.

Evaluate Sources

Now that you've gathered a wide array of sources, it's time to evaluate them. First, consider the reliability of the information. Where is the information coming from? What is the origin of the source? Second, assess the  relevance  of the information. How does this information relate to your research question? Does it support, refute, or add context to your position? How does it relate to the other sources you'll be using in your paper? Once you have determined that your sources are both reliable and relevant, you can proceed confidently to the writing phase. 

Why Write Research Papers? 

The research process is one of the most taxing academic tasks you'll be asked to complete. Luckily, the value of writing a research paper goes beyond that A+ you hope to receive. Here are just some of the benefits of research papers. 

• Learning Scholarly Conventions:  Writing a research paper is a crash course in the stylistic conventions of scholarly writing. During the research and writing process, you'll learn how to document your research, cite sources appropriately, format an academic paper, maintain an academic tone, and more.
• Organizing Information: In a way, research is nothing more than a massive organizational project. The information available to you is near-infinite, and it's your job to review that information, narrow it down, categorize it, and present it in a clear, relevant format. This process requires attention to detail and major brainpower.
• Managing Time: Research papers put your time management  skills to the test. Every step of the research and writing process takes time, and it's up to you to set aside the time you'll need to complete each step of the task. Maximize your efficiency by creating a research schedule and inserting blocks of "research time" into your calendar as soon as you receive the assignment. 
• Exploring Your Chosen Subject:  We couldn't forget the best part of research papers—learning about something that truly excites you. No matter what topic you choose, you're bound to come away from the research process with new ideas and countless nuggets of fascinating information. 

The best research papers are the result of genuine interest and a thorough research process. With these ideas in mind, go forth and research. Welcome to the scholarly conversation!

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

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The results section is where you report the findings of your study based upon the methodology [or methodologies] you applied to gather information. The results section should state the findings of the research arranged in a logical sequence without bias or interpretation. A section describing results should be particularly detailed if your paper includes data generated from your own research.

Annesley, Thomas M. "Show Your Cards: The Results Section and the Poker Game." Clinical Chemistry 56 (July 2010): 1066-1070.

Importance of a Good Results Section

When formulating the results section, it's important to remember that the results of a study do not prove anything . Findings can only confirm or reject the hypothesis underpinning your study. However, the act of articulating the results helps you to understand the problem from within, to break it into pieces, and to view the research problem from various perspectives.

The page length of this section is set by the amount and types of data to be reported . Be concise. Use non-textual elements appropriately, such as figures and tables, to present findings more effectively. In deciding what data to describe in your results section, you must clearly distinguish information that would normally be included in a research paper from any raw data or other content that could be included as an appendix. In general, raw data that has not been summarized should not be included in the main text of your paper unless requested to do so by your professor.

Avoid providing data that is not critical to answering the research question . The background information you described in the introduction section should provide the reader with any additional context or explanation needed to understand the results. A good strategy is to always re-read the background section of your paper after you have written up your results to ensure that the reader has enough context to understand the results [and, later, how you interpreted the results in the discussion section of your paper that follows].

Bavdekar, Sandeep B. and Sneha Chandak. "Results: Unraveling the Findings." Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 63 (September 2015): 44-46; Brett, Paul. "A Genre Analysis of the Results Section of Sociology Articles." English for Specific Speakers 13 (1994): 47-59; Go to English for Specific Purposes on ScienceDirect;Burton, Neil et al. Doing Your Education Research Project . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2008; Results. The Structure, Format, Content, and Style of a Journal-Style Scientific Paper. Department of Biology. Bates College; Kretchmer, Paul. Twelve Steps to Writing an Effective Results Section. San Francisco Edit; "Reporting Findings." In Making Sense of Social Research Malcolm Williams, editor. (London;: SAGE Publications, 2003) pp. 188-207.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Organization and Approach

For most research papers in the social and behavioral sciences, there are two possible ways of organizing the results . Both approaches are appropriate in how you report your findings, but use only one approach.

• Present a synopsis of the results followed by an explanation of key findings . This approach can be used to highlight important findings. For example, you may have noticed an unusual correlation between two variables during the analysis of your findings. It is appropriate to highlight this finding in the results section. However, speculating as to why this correlation exists and offering a hypothesis about what may be happening belongs in the discussion section of your paper.
• Present a result and then explain it, before presenting the next result then explaining it, and so on, then end with an overall synopsis . This is the preferred approach if you have multiple results of equal significance. It is more common in longer papers because it helps the reader to better understand each finding. In this model, it is helpful to provide a brief conclusion that ties each of the findings together and provides a narrative bridge to the discussion section of the your paper.

NOTE:   Just as the literature review should be arranged under conceptual categories rather than systematically describing each source, you should also organize your findings under key themes related to addressing the research problem. This can be done under either format noted above [i.e., a thorough explanation of the key results or a sequential, thematic description and explanation of each finding].

II.  Content

In general, the content of your results section should include the following:

• Introductory context for understanding the results by restating the research problem underpinning your study . This is useful in re-orientating the reader's focus back to the research problem after having read a review of the literature and your explanation of the methods used for gathering and analyzing information.
• Inclusion of non-textual elements, such as, figures, charts, photos, maps, tables, etc. to further illustrate key findings, if appropriate . Rather than relying entirely on descriptive text, consider how your findings can be presented visually. This is a helpful way of condensing a lot of data into one place that can then be referred to in the text. Consider referring to appendices if there is a lot of non-textual elements.
• A systematic description of your results, highlighting for the reader observations that are most relevant to the topic under investigation . Not all results that emerge from the methodology used to gather information may be related to answering the " So What? " question. Do not confuse observations with interpretations; observations in this context refers to highlighting important findings you discovered through a process of reviewing prior literature and gathering data.
• The page length of your results section is guided by the amount and types of data to be reported . However, focus on findings that are important and related to addressing the research problem. It is not uncommon to have unanticipated results that are not relevant to answering the research question. This is not to say that you don't acknowledge tangential findings and, in fact, can be referred to as areas for further research in the conclusion of your paper. However, spending time in the results section describing tangential findings clutters your overall results section and distracts the reader.
• A short paragraph that concludes the results section by synthesizing the key findings of the study . Highlight the most important findings you want readers to remember as they transition into the discussion section. This is particularly important if, for example, there are many results to report, the findings are complicated or unanticipated, or they are impactful or actionable in some way [i.e., able to be pursued in a feasible way applied to practice].

NOTE:   Always use the past tense when referring to your study's findings. Reference to findings should always be described as having already happened because the method used to gather the information has been completed.

III.  Problems to Avoid

When writing the results section, avoid doing the following :

• Discussing or interpreting your results . Save this for the discussion section of your paper, although where appropriate, you should compare or contrast specific results to those found in other studies [e.g., "Similar to the work of Smith [1990], one of the findings of this study is the strong correlation between motivation and academic achievement...."].
• Reporting background information or attempting to explain your findings. This should have been done in your introduction section, but don't panic! Often the results of a study point to the need for additional background information or to explain the topic further, so don't think you did something wrong. Writing up research is rarely a linear process. Always revise your introduction as needed.
• Ignoring negative results . A negative result generally refers to a finding that does not support the underlying assumptions of your study. Do not ignore them. Document these findings and then state in your discussion section why you believe a negative result emerged from your study. Note that negative results, and how you handle them, can give you an opportunity to write a more engaging discussion section, therefore, don't be hesitant to highlight them.
• Including raw data or intermediate calculations . Ask your professor if you need to include any raw data generated by your study, such as transcripts from interviews or data files. If raw data is to be included, place it in an appendix or set of appendices that are referred to in the text.
• Be as factual and concise as possible in reporting your findings . Do not use phrases that are vague or non-specific, such as, "appeared to be greater than other variables..." or "demonstrates promising trends that...." Subjective modifiers should be explained in the discussion section of the paper [i.e., why did one variable appear greater? Or, how does the finding demonstrate a promising trend?].
• Presenting the same data or repeating the same information more than once . If you want to highlight a particular finding, it is appropriate to do so in the results section. However, you should emphasize its significance in relation to addressing the research problem in the discussion section. Do not repeat it in your results section because you can do that in the conclusion of your paper.
• Confusing figures with tables . Be sure to properly label any non-textual elements in your paper. Don't call a chart an illustration or a figure a table. If you are not sure, go here .

Annesley, Thomas M. "Show Your Cards: The Results Section and the Poker Game." Clinical Chemistry 56 (July 2010): 1066-1070; Bavdekar, Sandeep B. and Sneha Chandak. "Results: Unraveling the Findings." Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 63 (September 2015): 44-46; Burton, Neil et al. Doing Your Education Research Project . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2008;  Caprette, David R. Writing Research Papers. Experimental Biosciences Resources. Rice University; Hancock, Dawson R. and Bob Algozzine. Doing Case Study Research: A Practical Guide for Beginning Researchers . 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press, 2011; Introduction to Nursing Research: Reporting Research Findings. Nursing Research: Open Access Nursing Research and Review Articles. (January 4, 2012); Kretchmer, Paul. Twelve Steps to Writing an Effective Results Section. San Francisco Edit ; Ng, K. H. and W. C. Peh. "Writing the Results." Singapore Medical Journal 49 (2008): 967-968; Reporting Research Findings. Wilder Research, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Human Services. (February 2009); Results. The Structure, Format, Content, and Style of a Journal-Style Scientific Paper. Department of Biology. Bates College; Schafer, Mickey S. Writing the Results. Thesis Writing in the Sciences. Course Syllabus. University of Florida.

Writing Tip

Why Don't I Just Combine the Results Section with the Discussion Section?

It's not unusual to find articles in scholarly social science journals where the author(s) have combined a description of the findings with a discussion about their significance and implications. You could do this. However, if you are inexperienced writing research papers, consider creating two distinct sections for each section in your paper as a way to better organize your thoughts and, by extension, your paper. Think of the results section as the place where you report what your study found; think of the discussion section as the place where you interpret the information and answer the "So What?" question. As you become more skilled writing research papers, you can consider melding the results of your study with a discussion of its implications.

Driscoll, Dana Lynn and Aleksandra Kasztalska. Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

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What Is a Research Report?

Understanding research reports, financial analyst research reports, research report impact, conflicts of interest.

• Fundamental Analysis

What Is a Research Report? How They're Produced and Impact

James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist.

A research report is a document prepared by an analyst or strategist who is a part of the investment research team in a stock brokerage or investment bank . A research report may focus on a specific stock or industry sector, a currency, commodity or fixed-income instrument, or on a geographic region or country. Research reports generally, but not always, have actionable recommendations such as investment ideas that investors can act upon.

Research reports are produced by a variety of sources, ranging from market research firms to in-house departments at large organizations. When applied to the investment industry, the term usually refers to sell-side research, or investment research produced by brokerage houses.

Such research is disseminated to the institutional and retail clients of the brokerage that produces it. Research produced by the buy-side, which includes pension funds, mutual funds, and portfolio managers , is usually for internal use only and is not distributed to external parties.

Financial analysts may produce research reports for the purpose of supporting a particular recommendation, such as whether to buy or sell a particular security or whether a client should consider a particular financial product. For example, an analyst may create a report in regards to a new offering being proposed by a company. The report could include relevant metrics regarding the company itself, such as the number of years they have been in operation as well as the names of key stakeholders , along with statistics regarding the current state of the market in which the company participates. Information regarding overall profitability and the intended use of the funds can also be included.

Enthusiasts of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) might insist that the value of professional analysts' research reports is suspect and that investors likely place too much confidence in the conclusions such analysts make. While a definitive conclusion about this topic is difficult to make because comparisons are not exact, some research papers do exist which claim empirical evidence supporting the value of such reports.

One such paper studied the market for India-based investments and analysts who cover them. The paper was published in the March 2014 edition of the International Research Journal of Business and Management. Its authors concluded that analyst recommendations do have an impact and are beneficial to investors at least in short-term decisions.

While some analysts are functionally unaffiliated, others may be directly or indirectly affiliated with the companies for which they produce reports. Unaffiliated analysts traditionally perform independent research to determine an appropriate recommendation and may have a limited concern regarding the outcome.

Affiliated analysts may feel best served by ensuring any research reports portray clients in a favorable light. Additionally, if an analyst is also an investor in the company on which the report is based, he may have a personal incentive to avoid topics that may result in a lowered valuation of the securities in which he has invested.

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Chinese scientists cure diabetes using stem cells in world first

• The 59-year-old patient of 25 years received a transplant of pancreatic cells derived from his own stem cells in 2021. He is now insulin independent.
• This marks the world’s first successful use of stem cell-derived islet transplantation to cure diabetes .
• The achievement, published on Cell Discovery on April 30, comes after over a decade of research at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital.
• Diabetes is a major health threat, affecting 422 million people worldwide. While there is still no known cure for diabetes, methods of management include insulin injections and other medications.
• The patient reportedly suffered a significant decline in pancreatic islet function, which regulates blood sugar, after undergoing a kidney transplant in 2017. Since then, he had been dependent on daily multiple insulin injections. 
• In July 2021, a team at the hospital led by researcher Yin Hao used the patient’s own blood cells to create stem cells, which were then converted into pancreatic islet cells.
• The transplant successfully eliminated the patient’s need for external insulin within 11 weeks. Oral medication was also gradually reduced and ultimately discontinued a year later.
• Follow-up exams showed restored pancreatic function and normal kidney function, suggesting that the patient has been cured .
• In 2023, the FDA approved a similar cell therapy  treatment by a Chicago-based startup for type 1 diabetes.
• The Chinese researchers say more research is needed to confirm the long-term efficacy and broaden applicability of this treatment.

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The state of customer care in 2022

Customer care leaders are facing a perfect storm of challenges: call volumes are up, employees are leaving and harder to replace, and digital solutions aren’t yet delivering on their full promise. Add rising customer expectations and decades-high inflation  to the mix, and it’s easy to understand why customer care leaders are feeling the pressure.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Jeff Berg , Eric Buesing , Paul Hurst, Vivian Lai, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay, representing views of McKinsey’s Customer Care service line.

The stakes couldn’t be higher as teams try to adapt to a postpandemic era of customer care. Over the past two years, leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home—up to 85 percent of their workforces, in some cases. Contact center employees are harder to hold onto, and nearly half of customer care managers experienced increased attrition in 2021, leading to performance variability.

Over the past two years, customer care leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home.

While digital solutions and the shift to self-service channels will solve many of these challenges, they aren’t quite reaching the goal. For most organizations, the vast majority of digital customer contacts require assistance, and only 10 percent of newly built digital platforms are fully scaled or adopted by customers.

Not surprisingly, McKinsey’s 2022 State of Customer Care Survey has found that customer care is now a strategic focus for companies. Respondents say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months will be retaining and developing the best people, driving a simplified customer experience (CX)  while reducing call volumes and costs, and building their digital care and advanced analytics ecosystems.

With challenges on all fronts, the question now confronting leaders is how best to prioritize investment across the people, operations, and technology aspects of their customer care strategies. Knowing where to focus or what to do first isn’t easy, and businesses need to move quickly. Companies that don’t invest in this area face the possibility of further talent attrition, customer dissatisfaction, and even loss of market share.

But customer care is also now a major opportunity for businesses. Done well—through a combination of tech and human touch—it is an area where companies can drive loyalty through a more personalized customer journey while unlocking greater productivity, increased revenue, improved job satisfaction, and real-time customer insights.

This article presents the key findings of the 2022 State of Customer Care Survey and how businesses are shifting priorities at this critical time.

Challenges on all fronts

To uncover the latest trends in customer care, McKinsey surveyed more than 160 industry leaders and experts at the director, senior director, vice president, and C-suite levels to find out how their operations have been affected over the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Care is at an inflection point

The survey findings indicate that customer care is at an inflection point. Call volumes are higher and more complex than before, while companies find themselves struggling to find talent and train them to proficiency at pace.

As customer care increasingly moves online, the distinction between digital and live interactions has also begun to blur. Organizations are looking for new capabilities that will enhance both the customer and employee experience in “moments that matter”—those interactions that may have previously happened face to face or have significant influence on overall CX.

Compared with results of the 2019 State of Customer Care Survey, customer care leaders are now more focused on improving CX, reducing contact volumes, deploying AI assistance, and increasing revenue generation on service calls (Exhibit 1).

Customer care talent is increasingly scarce

Higher call volumes and more complex calls are challenging existing capacity—61 percent of surveyed care leaders report a growth in total calls, with increased contacts per customer and a growing customer base as the key drivers. And 58 percent of care leaders expect call volumes to increase even further over the next 18 months.

While a growing customer base is a positive sign for business, it puts greater pressure on contact centers that are already under strain. More customers mean increased call numbers, and with more complex calls, customers tend to have to phone contact centers over and over again—further affecting capacity and resulting in a more negative CX overall.

To make matters worse, talent attrition is affecting customer care capacity. Employees are leaving faster than they did before the pandemic—a result of the Great Attrition—and are more difficult to replace. Nearly half of surveyed managers report increased employee attrition over the past 12 months.

The top-cited reason for employees leaving is poaching by competitors—58 percent—alongside employee burnout, employee dissatisfaction, lack of advancement opportunities, and poor work–life balance (Exhibit 2).

Retaining talent could prove vital in the race to maintain capacity. New hires require significant staff training, with 41 percent of surveyed leaders reporting that it takes between three and six months to train a new employee for optimal performance and a further 20 percent saying it takes more than six months.

Uniting self-service and live channels

Many companies have made significant investments in digital care capacity in recent years, though cross-channel integration and migration issues continue to hamper progress. For example, 77 percent of survey respondents report that their organizations have built digital platforms, but only 10 percent report that those platforms are fully scaled and adopted by customers. Only 12 percent of digital platforms are highly integrated, and, for most organizations, only 20 percent of digital contacts are unassisted.

In an increasingly digital first environment, however, customer care is fundamental to how organizations interact with their customers. Leaders in this field are asking, “How do we create a better, more personalized experience through digitally enabled services?”

Businesses are investing in three critical areas

Faced with the challenges of a fast-changing and demanding environment, companies can’t afford to refrain from acting on the customer care storm. Over the past two years, customers have flocked to digital channels because of the pandemic, and organizations have had to race to meet their needs with new channels that support remote and digital transactions.

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In a postpandemic future, this pivot to digital is likely to keep growing. And while many companies believe that they have made significant strides in their customer care transformation journey, a significant number remain at a foundational level—they are improving self-service options and automating common requests but haven’t yet moved far enough along the journey to distinguish from their competitors. Meanwhile, those that have the leading edge are leveraging real-time customer behavior insights and conversational AI to deliver proactive customer outreach.

Customer care leaders say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months are to retain and develop the best people, drive a simplified CX while reducing call volumes and costs, and build out their digital care ecosystems.

Retain and develop the best people

Traditionally, customer care talent has been regarded as cheap, easy to replace, and relatively low skilled. But with call volumes growing and calls becoming more complex to resolve, these employees now require more strategic consideration.

With three out of five surveyed leaders citing attracting, training, and retaining talent as a top priority, businesses are looking at ways to build a better organizational culture. Two of the most effective ways to do this—according to customer care leaders—are to find ways to motivate and build trust with employees and to encourage leaders to listen and act on employee feedback (Exhibit 3).

Shift the interactions

Shifting the workload away from transactional, repetitive calls can address a number of the headaches facing customer care leaders. The move can free up capacity to improve CX while offering more rewarding work to employees.

Companies are looking to shift from a transactional to a solution-oriented interaction during the live, complex calls that matter most to customers. Organizations are also turning to self-service channels and tech to resolve high volumes. And the strategy is working. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed that decreased their call volumes identified improved self-service as a key driver (Exhibit 4).

Organizations are planning to increase digital interactions one and a half times by 2024. The top three areas identified for investment include tech that improves omnichannel and digital capabilities—for example, chatbots and AI tools—automated manual activities in contact centers, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Despite digital tech taking on more of the burden for customer service interactions, human assistance will likely remain an important driver of overall CX, especially in the moments that matter. Customers want fast, efficient service, but they also want personalized customer care, whatever the channel of engagement.

Develop AI-powered customer care ecosystems

The growing challenges around increasing volumes, rising complexity, and limited talent availability are unlikely to be solved at scale without AI and data analytics. Companies can optimize the entire customer operations footprint by using tech to measure performance, identify opportunities, and deploy value-capturing change management, thus delivering critical operations insights and impact at scale.

For customers, AI-driven tools like predictive analytics can deliver a personalized and proactive experience that resolves issues before customers are even aware that they exist—enhancing CX at every point along the customer journey. Tech can also assist in developing a high-performing workforce by identifying optimal work processes and practices using analytics. Automated coaching can potentially be deployed to every individual, supporting efforts to attract, develop, and retain scarce talent.

How CEOs can win the new service game

In the AI-powered care ecosystem, around 65 percent of tasks and 50 to 70 percent of contacts are automated, creating a true omnichannel experience that provides a consistent and seamless experience across interactions. In this way, the potential of contact centers could be unlocked to become loyalty-building revenue generators through greater solutioning and sales excellence.

Putting priorities into practice

CX is fast becoming a key competitive area. Companies that don’t prioritize their strategy and digital transformation journeys are likely to face continued customer dissatisfaction, as well as talent attrition—thus threatening their brand and market competitiveness.

Getting customer care right depends on prioritizing and investing across the people, operations, and tech aspects of the customer care strategy. Companies can consider the following key steps as they look to build out their capabilities and invest in their digital care ecosystems:

• Start by setting out the vision for the customer care organization, capturing what excellence looks like.
• Conduct a rapid but thorough due-diligence-style assessment of people, processes, and capabilities, looking at the customer care operation in a new light to identify not just incremental changes but a reimagined, large-scale transformation.
• Path one follows a traditional design approach, which may take longer but prove less risky, as the entire transformation is considered at the outset.
• Path two involves an interactive and agile design, test, and iterate methodology, which may lead to new solutions quickly.
• Leverage the full suite of available technologies and analytical approaches that are driving successful outcomes in customer care, including natural language processing (NLP) and AI in frontline operations to match work to workers, together with cognitive AI assistance for resolving simpler customer queries.

Personalized digital interaction nowadays is an expectation rather than a luxury or an added perk, and customer care is the issue at the heart of this digital first environment—companies can’t afford to stumble at this juncture. If done well, however, customer care presents a great opportunity to build loyalty and long-term relationships with customers, creating organizational resilience for the future.

Jeff Berg is a partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office; Eric Buesing is a partner in the Stamford, Connecticut, office; Paul Hurst is a consultant in the Charlotte, North Carolina, office, Vivian Lai is a consultant in the New York office, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay is an expert in the Chicago office.

The authors wish to thank Karunesh Ahuja and Charles-Michael Berg for their contributions to this article.

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Russian disinformation sites linked to former Florida deputy sheriff, research finds

More than 150 fake local news websites pushing Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences are connected to John Mark Dougan, an American former law enforcement officer living in Moscow, according to a research report published Wednesday by NewsGuard, a firm that monitors misinformation.

The websites, with names like DC Weekly, New York News Daily and Boston Times, look similar to those of legitimate local news outlets and have already succeeded in spreading a number of false stories surrounding the war in Ukraine. Experts warn they could be used to launder disinformation about the 2024 election. 

In an interview over WhatsApp, Dougan denied involvement with the websites. “Never heard of them,” he said. 

Dougan, a former Marine and police officer, fled his home in Florida in 2016 to evade criminal charges related to a massive doxxing campaign he was accused of launching against public officials and was given asylum by the Russian government. Most recently, Dougan has posed as a journalist in Ukraine’s Donbas region, testifying at Russian public hearings and making frequent appearances on Russian state TV . 

He’s now part of a small club of Western expats who have become purveyors of English-language propaganda for Russia. Researchers and cybersecurity companies had previously linked Dougan to the sites. The NewsGuard report published Wednesday is the latest to implicate him in the fake news ring. 

Academic research from Clemson University linked Dougan to the network of fake news websites last year after one of them was found to share an IP address with other sites he ran, including his personal website.

In an interview, Darren Linvill, co-director of the Watt Family Innovation Center Media Forensics Hub at Clemson, called Dougan “a tool of the broader Russian disinformation machine” whose websites “are just one of several mechanisms by which these narratives are distributed.”

Linvill noted the fake news websites had lately veered away from the narrow focus of undermining support for Ukraine. Recent fake articles include the false claims that the FBI wiretapped former President Donald Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, and that the CIA backed a Ukrainian plot to rig the election against Trump.  

“There is no question we are beginning to see a shift in focus toward the U.S. election,” Linvill said. 

Posing as local news, the sites host articles about crime, politics and sports, most of which seem to have been generated with artificial intelligence tools and are attributed to journalists who do not exist . Interspersed within the general news are articles that disparage the U.S., exalt Russia and spread disinformation about topics from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to Covid vaccines.

Researchers say sites attributed to Dougan are marred with telltale signs of his signature, including early website registration records, IP addresses, similar image headers and layouts, being built with WordPress software, seemingly AI-generated prompts mistakenly left in copy and error messages at the ends of articles.

The reach of the campaigns varies. Some of the sites remained active for just weeks with little to no pickup in the wider media. But some fake news stories have gained traction, including several recent posts using forged documents that falsely claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was improperly using foreign aid to enrich himself. Last month, a story on the fake news site The London Crier said Zelenskyy had spent 20 million pounds on a mansion previously owned by King Charles III. 

It followed a story posted to DC Weekly in November that falsely claimed Zelenskyy had used American aid money to buy two yachts. 

Both rumors relied, as the network often does, on videos posted to YouTube by newly created accounts. A site like DC Weekly will publish fake news stories using videos of seemingly AI-generated “leaks” or examples of whistleblowing, and Russian influencers and bot networks will then spread those articles, according to the Clemson researchers. Ultimately, the fake articles are reported as fact by pro-Kremlin media outlets and, in some of the most successful cases, by Western politicos and pundits. 

The rumor about Zelenskyy’s buying yachts was later promoted by Republican members of Congress , including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. 

The author of the new report, McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s editor, pointed to the network’s sophisticated use of AI to produce content and make narratives seem credible. 

“In the wrong hands, this technology can be used to spread disinformation at scale,” Sadeghi said. “With this network, we’re seeing that play out exactly.”

What specific support Dougan receives from Russia is unclear. In May, the cybersecurity company Recorded Future reported a “realistic possibility” that the network receives strategic guidance, support or oversight from the Russian government. In March, The New York Times reported that the fake local news ring “appears to involve remnants” of the Internet Research Agency, the troll factory created by the late Putin associate Yevgeny Prigozhin to influence the 2016 presidential election. Previous reporting on Dougan and his more dubious claims — including that he was in possession of leaked documents from murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich and secret tapes belonging to Jeffrey Epstein — suggests Dougan may be pursuing wealth, clout or operating from some other motive in addition to a state-sanctioned political agenda.

Dougan was an early creator of fake websites. After he resigned from his job as a sheriff’s deputy in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was fired months later from a subsequent one in Windham, Maine, over sexual harassment claims , he built a network of websites that focused on what he claimed was widespread corruption in Windham, naming local police and town officials in articles. He also reportedly launched a campaign doxxing thousands of federal agents, judges and law enforcement officers, posting their home addresses and salacious allegations online. By 2015 he was operating several websites with official-sounding names like DCWeekly.com and DCPost.org, which hosted made-up articles. In 2016, he fled to Russia following an FBI raid of his home to evade charges linked to his doxxing efforts. 

YouTube banned Dougan last year. On Telegram, he attributed the ban to videos he uploaded alleging a Russian mission to destroy U.S.-run bioweapons labs in Ukraine, a false narrative that would take hold as a justification for Russia’s invasion. Dougan’s ban came on the heels of a report from NewsGuard that highlighted the pro-Russian propaganda on his channel. 

According to co-CEO Steven Brill, NewsGuard’s earlier report and Dougan’s subsequent ban led to a harassment campaign against him. Brill says in a coming book that Dougan impersonated an FBI officer in phone calls to him, left threatening messages and posted YouTube videos showing aerial shots of Brill’s home.

Over WhatsApp, Dougan defended his videos about Brill, citing NewsGuard’s “partnership with the US government” to have his content removed. 

There is no evidence NewsGuard acted in concert with or on behalf of the U.S. government when it investigated Dougan. Asked for proof of such a partnership, Dougan sent a link to his own video, a 31-minute monologue laden with conspiracy theories. He’d reposted it to YouTube.

Brandy Zadrozny is a senior reporter for NBC News. She covers misinformation, extremism and the internet.

How does 'not' affect what we understand? Scientists find negation mitigates our interpretation of phrases

New study shows how the brain builds new meanings through word combinations.

When we're told "This coffee is hot" upon being served a familiar caffeinated beverage at our local diner or cafe, the message is clear. But what about when we're told "This coffee is not hot"? Does that mean we think it's cold ? Or room temperature? Or just warm?

A team of scientists has now identified how our brains work to process phrases that include negation (i.e., "not"), revealing that it mitigates rather than inverts meaning -- in other words, in our minds, negation merely reduces the temperature of our coffee and does not make it "cold."

"We now have a firmer sense of how negation operates as we try to make sense of the phrases we process," explains Arianna Zuanazzi, a postdoctoral fellow in New York University's Department of Psychology at the time of the study and the lead author of the paper, which appears in the journal PLOS Biology . "In identifying that negation serves as a mitigator of adjectives -- 'bad' or 'good,' 'sad' or 'happy,' and 'cold' or 'hot' -- we also have a better understanding of how the brain functions to interpret subtle changes in meaning."

In an array of communications, ranging from advertising to legal filings, negation is often used intentionally to mask a clear understanding of a phrase. In addition, large language models in AI tools have difficulty interpreting passages containing negation. The researchers say that their results show how humans process such phrases while also potentially pointing to ways to understand and improve AI functionality.

While the ability of human language to generate novel or complex meanings through the combination of words has long been known, how this process occurs is not well understood.

To address this, Zuanazzi and her colleagues conducted a series of experiments to measure how participants interpreted phrases and also monitored participants' brain activity during these tasks -- in order to precisely gauge related neurological function.

In the experiments, participants read -- on a computer monitor -- adjective phrases with and without negation (e.g., "really not good" and "really really good") and rated their meaning on a scale from 1 ("really really bad") to 10 ("really really good") using a mouse cursor. This scale was designed, in part, to determine if participants interpreted phrases with negation as the opposite of those without negation -- in other words, did they interpret "really not good" as "bad" -- or, instead, as something more measured?

Here, the researchers found that participants took longer to interpret phrases with negation than they did phrases without negation -- indicating, not surprisingly given the greater complexity, that negation slows down our processing of meaning. In addition, drawing from how the participants moved their cursors, negated phrases were first interpreted as affirmative (i.e., "not hot" was initially interpreted as closer to "hot" than to "cold"), but later shifted to a mitigated meaning, suggesting that, for instance, "not hot" is not interpreted as either "hot" or "cold," but, rather, as something between "hot" and "cold."

The scientists also used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the magnetic fields generated by the electrical activity of participants' brains while they were performing these phrase-interpretation tasks. As with the behavioral experiments, neural representations of polar adjectives such as "cold" and "hot" were made more similar by negation, suggesting that the meaning of "not hot" is interpreted as "less hot" and the meaning of "not cold" as "less cold," becoming less distinguishable. In sum, neural data matched what was observed for the mouse movements in the behavioral experiments: negation does not invert the meaning of "hot" to "cold," but rather weakens or mitigates its representation along the semantic continuum between "cold" and "hot."

"This research spotlights the complexity that goes into language comprehension, showing that this cognitive process goes above and beyond the sum of the processing of individual word meanings," observes Zuanazzi, now at the Child Mind Institute.

The paper's other authors were: Pablo Ripollés, an assistant professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and associate director of Music and Audio Research Laboratory at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Jean-Rémi King, a researcher at France's École Normale Supérieure; Wy Ming Lin, a doctoral student at the University of Tübingen; Laura Gwilliams, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the study; and David Poeppel, a professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and managing director of the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in Frankfurt, Germany.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (2043717).

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• Arianna Zuanazzi, Pablo Ripollés, Wy Ming Lin, Laura Gwilliams, Jean-Rémi King, David Poeppel. Negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives . PLOS Biology , 2024; 22 (5): e3002622 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002622

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• Tim Smyth   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0659-1422 3 , 4 ,
• Jonathan Tinker   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3160-7000 1 ,
• Jeremy P. Grist   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1068-9211 5 ,
• Juliane Uta Wihsgott   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7909-0007 3 ,
• Sam Jones 6 ,
• Mark Inall 6 ,
• Glenn Nolan 7 ,
• Barbara Berx 8 ,
• Alex Arnold 1 ,
• Lewis P. Blunn   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3207-5002 1 ,
• Juan Manuel Castillo 1 ,
• Daniel Cotterill 1 , 9 ,
• Eoghan Daly 7 ,
• Gareth Dow 1 ,
• Breogán Gómez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3433-5672 1 ,
• Vivian Fraser-Leonhardt 1 ,
• Joel J.-M. Hirschi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1481-3697 5 ,
• Huw W. Lewis 1 ,
• Sana Mahmood 1 , 9 &
• Mark Worsfold 1  

Communications Earth & Environment volume  5 , Article number:  287 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Atmospheric dynamics
• Physical oceanography

The Northwest European shelf experienced unprecedented surface temperature anomalies in June 2023 (anomalies up to 5 °C locally, north of Ireland). Here, we show the shelf average underwent its longest recorded category II marine heatwave (16 days). With state-of-the-art observation and modelling capabilities, we show the marine heatwave developed quickly due to strong atmospheric forcing (high level of sunshine, weak winds, tropical air) and weak wave activity under anticyclonic weather regimes. Once formed, this shallow marine heatwave fed back on the weather: over the sea it reduced cloud cover and over land it contributed to breaking June mean temperature records and to enhanced convective rainfall through stronger, warmer and moister sea breezes. This marine heatwave was intensified by the last 20-year warming trend in sea surface temperatures. Such sea surface temperatures are projected to become commonplace by the middle of the century under a high greenhouse gas emission scenario.

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Introduction.

Marine heatwaves (MHW) are prolonged (>5 days) anomalously high sea surface temperature (SST) events (SST >90th centile of its daily climatology) 1 . They can have strong ecological and socioeconomic impacts, such as mass coral bleaching in tropical regions 2 , biological regime shifts in temperate regions 3 and enhanced coastal urban heat islands 4 . They tend to be shorter lived in mid-latitudes (10–15 days), given the large amplitude of the annual cycle and variability of the jet stream: large-scale atmospheric pressure anomalies precede anomalous ocean warming in these regions 5 , 6 . Wind speed suppression is the most common factor (82%) in MHW formation globally, with a majority also having a decrease in latent heat loss for subtropical and middle to high latitudes 7 . The most intense MHWs tend to occur in summer because of a shallow mixed layer, weaker wind speeds and higher variability in solar radiation 6 , 7 , 8 . Given that the continental shelf is shallow (30–250 m) 9 , SSTs here are more sensitive to regional and local scale drivers 10 .

Anthropogenic climate change has substantially increased the likelihood of MHWs over the past few decades 11 , 12 . Future projections show an increasing trend in the intensity, extension and duration of MHWs in all warming scenarios (RCP2.6 or RCP8.5), with the most extreme MHWs (1 in 100 year event) becoming frequent in RCP8.5 (1 in 4 year) by the middle of the century 12 , 13 .

We investigate the regional marine heatwave which affected the northwest European shelf (NWS) in June 2023. This event was preceded by an anomalously warm subtropical North Atlantic, and then northwest Atlantic waters, from May 2023 14 . A Mediterranean MHW followed in July. Globally, SSTs reached unprecedented levels in August 2023 14 . This article gathers observational and model evidence of the MHW over the NWS; investigates its origins and feedbacks on the weather and sets it within the context of a changing climate.

Characteristics of the marine heatwave

SSTs soared in the Northwest European shelf (NWS) in June 2023. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared a category IV MHW for parts of it on 17 June. We follow NOAA definition in this article, which is based on Hobday et al. (2018): Category IV means SSTs were greater than their average by four times their daily 90th centile deviation calculated over 1982–2012 1 . The average over the whole NWS was +2.9 °C warmer than climatological June in the Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis system (OSTIA 15 , 16 ), based on satellite observations (Fig.  1a ). Given that the 90th centile over the shelf is +1 °C, +2.9 °C corresponds to a category II MHW (twice above 90th centile anomaly) that lasted for 16 days, which is unprecedented in the last 40 years (1982-2022, Fig.  1a ). The rapidity of the MHW onset was also remarkable: NWS-averaged anomalies rose from category I to category II in just 6 days (10–16 June). With a rise of 2.4 °C in 7 days, this trend is the second highest in the OSTIA 40-year record (Fig.  1d ). Seasonally stratifying regions of the NWS experienced the strongest surface warming compared to shallow, tidally mixed parts of the shelf (Channel and Irish sea in Fig.  1c ). During the peak week (19–26 June, SSTs locally showed +5 °C anomalies in the central North Sea and the Irish shelf, reaching category IV in a few coastal areas (Fig.  1c ). The Irish shelf anomaly started earlier (end of May) than in the central North Sea (second week of June) (Fig.  S1 ). The local peaks are confirmed by gliders, which recorded near-surface temperatures over 16 °C in the Rockall Trough (Fig.  2a ) and in the western North Sea (Fig.  2e ), +4 °C and +5 °C above climatology for this time of year, and +2 °C above the average peak SSTs in August for these areas. The gliders east of Orkney observed peak SSTs of 14.5–15 °C, 3.5–4 °C above OSTIA climatology (Fig.  2c ). The Western Channel Observatory also provided information on the MHW in the context of its long observational record (>100 years at location E1 and 40 years at L4; Fig.  2g, h ). These locations showed a category I MHW throughout June, with record high temperatures for June at L4 (17.9 °C), and temperatures near the envelope of maximum recorded temperatures for E1.

a OSTIA SSTs for 1982–2023, mean climatologies (1982–2002 in full line and 2003–2022 in dotted line), 10th–90th centiles (anomalies smoothed with 31-day moving average), Shading: Category I, Category II, Category III marine heatwaves using Hobday et al. 1 averaged over the NWS (NWS=thick black contour in ( c )). b Same as a , but zoomed over the MHW, dashed red line is 2023-last 20-year trend c map of average OSTIA SST anomaly during peak week (19–25 June 2023) (relative to 1982–2012 mean), thin plain black contour: category II MHW, hashes: category III MHW, yellow contour: category IV MHW. d Normalised probability distribution of 7-day SST trends on the northwest European shelf—June 2023 maximum trend is in red (2.4 °C). It is the second highest trend after purple maximum trend (2.6 °C).

Glider observations: panel a , c , e near-surface (4 m) in-situ temperature observations, compared to closest OSTIA SST grid cells. Light grey lines show OSTIA daily SST between 1981 and 2023, heavy black line shows 1982–2010 daily mean (OSTIA) and black dashed line 10th/90th centile (OSTIA), panels b , d , f temperature profiles from gliders, white line shows SML depth. Panels g , h Monthly average temperature at 2 and 50 m depth (solid black line) for the Western Channel Observatory (WCO) time-series stations at L4 (50°15.0’N; 4°13.0’W) and E1 (50°02.6’N; 4°22.5’W) together with the 90th and 10th centile (dashed line) region shaded in grey. Data for 2023 shown in large symbols with dark red shading depicting heatwave conditions, light red a positive anomaly, light blue a negative anomaly and dark blue cold wave conditions. Small symbols outside the centile range depict record temperature on a given day of year for years other than 2023. Averaging period for E1 is 1903-2023; L4 is 1988-2023. Sampling frequency at L4 is weekly (since 1988) and bi-weekly or monthly at E1 (since 2002).

The glider observations also provide information about the depth of the anomaly (Fig.  2b, d, f ). All the gliders show a shoaling of the surface mixed layer (SML) depth from the start of June, with an extremely shallow SML (below 10 m) from 10 to 20 June, which deepens to 10–20 m from 20 to 30 June. E1 shows a 15 m depth SML on 27 June, 10 m shallower than in 2022 (Fig.  S5d, e ) and CTD profiles in the Celtic Sea on 22–23 June also recorded 5–15 m shallow SML (Fig.  S5f ). In late June and July, the mixed layer depth increases (Figs.  2 and S2 ) and the anomalies reduce throughout the column, as also recorded for E1 and L4 at 50 m (Fig.  2g, h ).

This June anomaly is additional to 2022 and early 2023 being 0.9 °C warmer than 1982–2012 climatology at the start of June across the NWS at the surface (Fig.  1b ) and at depth (E1 and L4 in Fig.  2 ; EN4 profiles in Fig.  S3b, c ; and regional OCN_amm7_RAN reanalysis Fig.  S4 ). This is consistent with the background 2003–2022 average being +0.9 °C warmer than 1982–2002 in June (Fig.  1b ).

Origins of the marine heatwave

We first aim to isolate the role of ocean stratification pre-conditioning on the MHW. Most regions of the NWS experienced warmer than average temperatures throughout the water column in winter and spring 2023, prior to the June MHW development. The SML depth averaged over the NWS shows no anomalous behaviour in comparison to the past 22 years of the OCN_amm7_RAN reanalysis (Fig.  S4 ). Seasonal stratification started in April and SML depth settled to ~20 m depth on average over the shelf around mid-May. Similarly, profiles in the Western Channel (E1, Fig.  S5a, b ) show a similar stratification in late May/early June of 2022 and 2033, suggesting no particularly strong or early stratification before the MHW. Further to this, the Price–Weller–Pinkel (“PWP”) one-dimensional upper ocean mixed layer model 17 initialised from an EN4 profile close to where glider Eltanin (57 N 13 W) was operating and driven by ERA5 supported this finding (Fig.  S2 ). Figure  S6 (EN4 analysis) further supports the limited impact of salinity on June stratification 18 .

To further test this hypothesis, we applied a high resolution regional coupled model (UKC3 17 ) to test whether the MHW would have developed across the NWS given the same atmospheric forcing but initialised from different ocean states representative of conditions in preceding years (Fig.  S7 ). Results show that all simulations consistently develop the MHW, confirming little effect of ocean pre-conditioning and advection of Atlantic waters. Ocean pre-conditioning is therefore of secondary importance compared to atmospheric forcing.

Indeed, June 2023 was the sunniest June since 1957 over the United Kingdom 19 . ERA5 monthly mean net shortwave radiation confirms June 2023 was unusually sunny over the NWS as a whole (Fig.  S8a ). Latent heat fluxes were also lower than average (Fig.  S8d ). June ocean wave activity was the lowest recorded over the shelf in the last 40 years according to the NWS regional wave reanalysis WAVamm15_RAN (Fig.  S9a, c ), linked with both local (North Sea/NWS) and remote (North Atlantic) weak winds (Fig.  S9d ).

Figure  3 shows six stages of the MHW evolution, using output from km-scale coupled simulations (CPL, see Methods and note Section 2 in Supplementary material shows CPL simulations are of good quality compared to observations). We use the standard weather regime classification over Northwest Europe 20 to describe the weather situation (top row, Fig.  3 ). Stage 1 in the first week of June shows slow warming, with a high pressure system centred over the British Isles (weather regimes (WR) 25, 6, 9), very high solar radiation (over 600 W m −2 ) and low wind speeds (Fig.  S10 ), which shoaled the SML by about 4 m. Stage 2 shows a warming hiatus on the 6–9 June, with a low-pressure system centred over the Azores, bringing windier conditions but also warm and moist tropical air over the NWS (Fig.  S10 ). Stage 3 between the 10 and 17 June sees the strongest warming trend. High-pressure moved to Scandinavia (WR 5) and another low-pressure system over the mid-Atlantic maintained a weak flow of tropical air over the UK (WR 16). That week showed a combination of (i) high solar radiation with long hours of sunshine near the summer solstice (Fig.  3d ); (ii) warm and moist air reducing sensible and latent heat fluxes and longwave radiative cooling (night-time cooling reduced to 50 W/m 2 , Fig.  S3e , Fig.  S10 ); (iii) very weak winds (Fig.  S10 ) and; (iv) neap tides (contributed to +0.05 °C by shoaling the SML by 1 m compared to spring tides (Fig.  S10 )). The combination of (i), (iii) and (iv) shoaled the SML to less than 10 m and contributed to large shortwave radiative heating (SW) of the SML by +10.0 °C over phases 1–3, only partially compensated by diurnal and tidal entrainment (−2.7 °C), longwave radiative cooling (LW, −3.0 °C), and weak latent (LH) and sensible (SH) cooling (−1.6 °C, Fig.  3d ). The total surface heat fluxes contribution to SST trend in stages 1–3 was enhanced by 85% by shallowing of the SML (from 2.9 °C to 5.5 °C, not shown). Figure  3d shows as an example that SW contribution would have been 5.7 °C instead of 10.0 °C if the SML had not shoaled (difference between SW term calculated with actual SML depth and SW term calculated with fixed SML depth from June 1st).

Top row: table with numbers: weather regimes based on 30 clusters using Neal et al. 45 , red means anticyclonic component over NWS, light blue cyclonic with weak circulation, dark blue strong cyclonic circulation. Weather regimes 9, 5, 16, 7, 2, 26 illustrated at the top (colour shading: mean sea level pressure (MSLP) anomalies (hPa) and MSLP mean values plotted in contours (2 hPa intervals)). Other rows: averages over the Northwest European Shelf (NWS) of: a Sea surface temperature (°C) from OSTIA, OSTIA 1982–2012 climatology (Ostia-clim) and the coupled simulation CPL, b sea surface height (m)—anomaly from reference geoid, the amplitude of the variations show the tidal amplitude, c surface mixed layer depth (de Boyer Montégut 22 density calculation using 0.2 °C gradient and 3 m reference level) (m) d cumulative temperature trend from shortwave radiative (SW, yellow), longwave radiative (LW, blue), sensible (SH, red) and latent (LH, cyan) heat fluxes, from entrainment (deepening of the mixed layer, grey), SW + LW + SH + LH in dashed magenta and same terms+entrainment in magenta (Eq.  1 in Methods). Also added is SW calculated with SML depth from June 1st (fixed) in yellow dotted line. Black is the actual cumulative trend. Budget is reset to cumulated d T /d t at the start of phase 4 and 6. e hourly total heat flux into the ocean (SW + LW + SH + LH).

Figure  4 shows the spatial distribution of the SW, LW, LH and entrainment terms of the mixed layer heat budget (Eq.  1 ) cumulated over phases 1–3, as well as the SML depth at the start (June 1st) and the end (June 17th). Figure  4a shows the heterogeneity of the SML over the NWS on June 1st, with areas permanently mixed by tidal currents (Channel, Irish Sea) showing weak SST trends for all the terms. These areas keep a deep SML from the 1st to the 17th. In the rest of the domain, SML becomes shallower than 10 m on June 17th, meaning that some areas such as the Celtic Sea experienced a shallowing of the SML by about 30 m. The heat budget terms are largest in the areas where the SML was shallower from the start, mostly over the NWS and adjacent areas. The entrainment terms is also largest on the NWS and adjacent areas, where tidal energy dissipation enhances vertical mixing.

a SML depth on June 1st, d SML depth on June 17th b cumulative SST trend (1–17 June) from entrainment at the bottom of the surface mixed layer, c from shortwave radiative flux, e from longwave radiative flux, f from latent heat flux. Note sensible heat flux not shown as tendencies are negligible compared to the other terms.

During stages 4 and 5, less strong shortwave influx (Fig.  S3e ) still results in +6 °C tendency (Fig. Sd ) because of the shallow SML (Figs.  3 c and 4d ) but entrainment, latent heat and longwave radiative fluxes compensate it: the MHW is stable (Fig.  3d ). Indeed, stage 4 saw the high-pressure system move south of the British Isles and most of NWS experienced weakly cyclonic conditions. Winds remained weak but solar heating was reduced due to clouds associated with weakly cyclonic regimes (WR 2, 7, 11, Fig.  3e , Fig.  S10 ). The shallow mixed layer and persistent weak winds meant the heat remained trapped near the ocean surface, although spring tides started to deepen the mixed layer (by 2 m, Fig.  S11 ). Stage 5 saw windier conditions, cloudier skies (WR 2), the SML deepened by 5 m but neap tide prevented an extra 1.5 m deepening and 0.1 °C cooling, Figure.  S11 ). The surface anomaly remained until the start of July, when a low-pressure centre (WR 26) swept through with high wind speeds (10 m s − 1 averaged over NWS), both reducing and mixing the surface anomaly through the water column depth (Fig.  3c, d , S 12 ). The high-pressure centre moved over central Europe in July, and unsettled weather in July and early August brought SST and whole ocean heat content closer to average (Fig.  1a , E1 & L4 in Fig.  2 , Fig.  S12 ).

Feedbacks on the weather

Under persistent anticyclonic conditions, slow-moving air accumulates heat and moisture from the sea before being advected over land 21 . To assess the local atmospheric response to the MHW, Fig.  5 shows the difference between two 31-day duration high resolution regional weather simulations. One uses the observed daily SST during June 2023 as a lower boundary condition (labelled ATMostia) and the other uses a climatological SST (ATMclim; shown in Fig.  3 ). Once the MHW is well established, its impact on the near-surface air temperature over the British Isles averages +1.1 °C during the last two weeks of June (stages 4 and 5). Figure  5c shows spatial anomalies to be especially strong in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, southwest England, Brittany and Denmark. Southeast England, northern France and the Netherlands show weaker warming because the SST anomaly in the Channel is relatively reduced (+1 °C) due to strong tidal mixing in this shallow area (Fig.  4d ), which prevents a near-surface build-up of heat. During stage 4, the anomalous air temperature peaks at 16:00 UTC up to +1.5 °C on three days: 19, 21 and 23 of June (Fig.  5a ). These peaks are associated with sea breezes, evident by stronger-than-usual diurnal peaks in land-average 10 m wind speeds (Fig.  5b ).

a 1.5 m air temperature difference averaged over the British Isles between a regional atmospheric simulation with the observed marine heatwave (ATMostia, with OSTIA SSTs) and without (ATMclim, with climatological OSTIA SSTs). b Wind averaged over the British Isles in both simulations (ATMostia in full line and ATMclim in dashed line). c Map of 1.5 m air–temperature differences (ATMostia–ATMclim) averaged from 19 to 25 June (red area on a , b ).

Interestingly, winds are increased over land by the MHW during stage 4 (Fig.  5b ), which is counter-intuitive given the land-sea contrast is reduced in the simulations with MHW (Fig.  S13a ). The sea breezes are driven by such a strong land-sea temperature gradient (5–10 °C) that their strength is not reduced by a −2 °C difference in the gradient (Fig.  S13a ). Instead, winds are increased over the ocean through a deeper boundary layer which brings more momentum near the surface (Fig.  S14 ). This momentum increase over the sea is propagated over land by the sea breezes and reinforces them. Higher humidity air is then advected over land (7% increase, Fig.  S13b ) and precipitation is increased by 23% over the British Isles because of the MHW during stage 4 (Fig.  S13c ). Precipitation during the week of 19 June is mostly convective and associated with convergence over land. On 21 June, a sea-breeze day, the probability of rainfall in England, Wales and Ireland was generally increased by the MHW, and convective events associated with sea breeze convergence in the English southwest peninsula would likely not have happened without the build-up of high SSTs over the preceding 2 weeks (Fig.  S15 ).

The MHW increased temperature and precipitation over land, through advection of near-surface air temperature and moisture anomalies by sea breezes. Now, we demonstrate that the MHW generated daytime positive feedback on the weather over the sea (Fig.  6 ). Indeed, in stage 4, cloud cover was 15% lower over the shelf (Fig.  6a ) in ATMostia compared to ATMclim, linked with a higher boundary layer height with warmer SSTs (Fig.  S14 ). This increased the shortwave radiative heat flux into the ocean by 11% during stage 4 (up to 78 W m −2 , Fig.  5b ). The reduced cloud cover is shown for 20 June at 15:00 UTC (Fig.  6c ), with the probability of low-cloud cover exceeding 37.5% in an 18-member ensemble (ATMostia_ens) strongly reduced over the sea when compared with ATMclim_ens. Satellite data showed no low-level clouds southwest of the domain, in agreement with ATMostia (not shown). All the other heat fluxes (LW, SH, LH) tended to cool the ocean more with the MHW than without, due to raised SSTs and winds (negative feedback). However, the increased shortwave (SW) radiation by 11% counteracted the increased cooling by LW, SH and LH (Fig.  6b ): the negative feedback was only 4% during stage 4, compared to 15% during stage 5. The positive SW feedback increased the temperature anomalies by 0.4 °C during phase 4 (calculated using the SML heat budget in Eq.  1 , see Methods). Without this positive feedback, the SST would have stayed stable, it would not have increased by a further 0.4 °C during stage 4.

a Mean cloud fraction over sea (averaged over the whole atmospheric column and over the northwest shelf) in the regional atmospheric simulation with MHW (ATMostia in full line) and without (ATMclim in dashed line). b Difference in heat flux (positive indicates more heat flux into the ocean) between ATMostia and ATMclim: net heat flux (dark green), SH (red), LH (sea blue), LW (blue), SW (yellow). c Probability of low cloud cover fraction >37.5% for 20 June 20 at 15:00UTC (grey line in a , b ) in an ensemble of regional ATMclim started on 19 June. d Same as c but with ATMostia.

Marine heatwave in a changing climate

Finally, we investigate whether the June 2023 MHW over the NWS is part of a trend and quantify its projected future frequency. Figure  7a–c shows the warm and cold sea surface anomalies for the Western Channel Observatory (WCO) stations and OSTIA averaged over the NWS. There is a clear trend towards fewer cold and more warm spells over the past 20 years for both E1 and OSTIA datasets, in agreement with a previous study for OSTIA 22 . All three datasets show a stronger shift in the last 8 years. Remarkably, the last 2 years have seen very few cold spells in the WCO and none for the whole NWS. This coincides with the disappearance of the northeastern Atlantic “cold blob” of 2015–2021 23 (Fig.  S3a ). The additional +0.9 °C background warming anomaly for June from the last 20 years lifted the MHW intensity up to category II instead of category I for 16 days (Fig.  1a ). However, the anticyclonic weather regime period linked with the build-up of the MHW is likely coming from weather variability or potentially teleconnections with a transition from La Niña to El Niño 24 : no recent trend in WRs 5, 6, 9 and 16 is clearly linked with climate change 25 .

a 1903–Aug 2023 2 m depth temperature anomaly timeseries at E1, b 1988–Aug 2023 2 m depth temperature anomaly timeseries at L4 (see Fig.  2 for location). Light red circles are positive anomalies, dark red circles represent heatwave conditions (>90th centile); Light blue circles are negative anomalies, dark blue circles represent cold spell conditions (<10th centile). c 1982–2023 OSTIA foundation SST timeseries overaged over the NWS. d Annual cycle of SSTs averaged across the NWS: grey 2000–2019 OCN_amm7_RAN reanalysis, orange future changes from NWS PPE projections (2040–2059). Bold line is the daily average. Left axis actual value, right axis shows SST difference with present-day. Blue line is 2022, red line 2023.

To assess how this MHW compares to future projections, we make use of the NWS future projections 26 : a 12-member regional ocean downscaling of the Hadley Centre Perturbed Parameter Ensemble (PPE 27 ). This NWS PPE ensemble uses a high-end Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5) with a high climate sensitivity global climate model. In this global ensemble, global mean temperatures reach +1.9 °C (1.7–2.2 °C) by 2040–2059 compared to 2000–2019. The daily mean SST increase over the NWS in Fig.  7d suggests that temperatures observed during the 2023 June MHW would be considered a small warm anomaly (+0.3 °C) by 2040–2059, an average month by 2050–2069, and would be considered a cold spell by the end of the century (2079–2098) (Fig.  S16 ). Using the Hobday MHWs analysis 1 on the NWS PPE, we find a rise of the percentage of the year experiencing a MHW from 8% in 2000–2019 to 66% in 2040–2059 and finally 93% by the last 20 years of the century (Figs.  S17 – 20 , Fig.  S21c , Table  S1 ). By 2079–2098, 39% of the NWS experience MHWs more than 95% of the time (Fig.  S20 , Table  S1 ). The average temperature above the 90 th centile threshold (relative to 2000–2019) is +0.44 °C (2000–2019), +0.89 °C (2040–2059) and +2.11 °C (2079–2098) (Fig.  S20f ). We note that summer SSTs increase more than winter SSTs, making the early summer (May/June) warming trends stronger. The weather regimes (WR) associated with the build-up (phases 1–3) and stationarity (phases 4–5) of this MHW are projected to slightly increase in frequency in summer by the end of the century by about 0.25% and 0.6% respectively, while WR associated with its breakdown (phase 6) should decrease slightly (−0.35%) (Fig.  S21 ).

Summary and discussion

The June 2023 MHW which affected the northwest European shelf was unprecedented in terms of intensity and duration. It started in late May over the eastern Atlantic and in early June over the shelf itself. Persistent anticyclonic weather patterns with weak winds and long hours of sunshine were responsible for first increasing the ocean stratification and then SSTs in the first half of June. In the second week of June, warm, moist air advected over the shelf by a remote low-pressure system additionally reduced ocean cooling. This led to very rapid warming (2 nd fastest 7-day trend recorded over the last 40 years). Once established, the MHW lasted for another two weeks: although sunshine was reduced in weakly cyclonic conditions, the winds and waves were still weak and the SML remained extremely shallow: SW heating still compensated all the other cooling processes. SW radiation was reinforced by 11% by a reduction in low-level cloud due to the MHW itself, and the last week of June saw continued weak winds and particularly neap tides, both preventing SML deepening.

We have demonstrated that the MHW had a strong impact on weather over land: the United Kingdom broke its record June monthly temperature by +0.9 °C, of which we quantify that 0.6 °C came from the feedback of the MHW. During the peak week of the MHW, the British Isles were 1.1 °C warmer and experienced 23% more rainfall, although water vapour only increased by 7%/°C, in line with the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. We suggest that continued studies of regional response of rainfall to MHWs may help constrain regional water cycle response to climate change.

The extreme 7-day trend in SST which started the MHW is a good example of a situation when regional numerical weather prediction (NWP) quality is reduced by keeping a fixed SST over 7-days 28 , which is the default practice in many forecasting centres. The Met Office recently implemented a time-varying SST in its weather forecast thanks to its marine forecasting system 28 . Figure  S22 shows benefits of this system even for short 36 h forecasts during the MHW.

The MHW intensity would have reached category I instead of II without the warming trend from the last 20 years. Its longevity however is most likely linked with climate variability. We suggest weather regimes 5, 6, 9, 16 should be monitored in long-range weather forecasting to help forecast MHWs over the NWS. In RCP8.5 projections, the SSTs experienced during this MHW are to become average past mid-century: impact studies on ecosystem health and its resilience to MHWs are needed.

The positive feedback of MHW on low-level cloud cover, serving to maintain extreme conditions, is further demonstration of the close coupling between the ocean and atmosphere across scales from basin to coastal scale. The availability of regional coupled modelling systems offers novel ways to explore these interactions and run counter-factual experiments such as our “climatological SST” summer. Given these strong influences, it is important that regional climate change projections should move towards coupled model approaches, in addition to advancing their use to underpin short-range hazard prediction in several operational centres 17 , 29 .

Climate analysis methodology (Fig.  6 )

Our climate analysis was based on OCN_amm7_proj 26 . Full details of our methodology are available in the Supplementary material, Section 1. Briefly, we assessed how the regional SST will change, and compared to the OCN_amm7_RAN in Fig.  6d (and Fig.  S14 ). We then developed a two-dimensional version of the Hobday MHW method and applied it to the OCN_amm7_proj, and assessed changes in the average and total duration of MHWs with the 20-year period, and their average and total intensity (Figs.  S23 – 25 ).

Surface mixed layer heat budget (Fig.  3 )

We considered SML as fully mixed and used a bulk formula for the SML heat budget 30 , with an entrainment term 31 .

T(t) is temperature averaged over the SML at hour t , \({Q}_{{{{{{\rm{SW}}}}}}}\) is SW flux at the surface, \(\left(1-0.58\right){Q}_{{{{{{\rm{SW}}}}}}}{{{{{{\rm{e}}}}}}}^{-\frac{h\left(t\right)}{13}}\) is shortwave flux at the bottom of the SML, according to the RGB NEMO parameterisation used in CPL, \({Q}_{{{{{{\rm{LH}}}}}}}+{Q}_{{{{{{\rm{SH}}}}}}}+{Q}_{{{{{{\rm{LW}}}}}}}\) are latent heat, sensible heat and longwave radiative heat flux respectively, \(\rho\) is density (1027), \({C}_{{{{{{\rm{p}}}}}}}\) is heat capacity of water (3850 J kg −1 °C −1 ), h is SML depth (m), calculated by de Boyer Montégut 32 (3 m reference level, 0.2 °C temperature (density equivalent) gradient), \({T}_{{dh}}(t-1)\) is the temperature averaged over the entrained layer ( h ( t  − 1) to h ( t )) (°C), \(\epsilon\) is a Heaviside function: 0 when \(\frac{{dh}}{{dt}}\)  < 0 and 1 when \(\frac{{dh}}{{dt}}\,\) > 0. \(\frac{{dh}}{{dt}}\) is the change in SML depth from t  − 1 to t. \(R\) is the remaining terms (including advection). We calculated each term at every grid point on an hourly basis and averaged them over the NWS. Note we added a condition that \(\frac{{dh}}{{dt}}\)  < 2 m h − 1 to avoid large jumps in the SML depth diagnostic.

Data availability

Gliders (Fig.   2 ) : Near-real time temperature data from three active ocean glider missions were used to investigate the water column structure prior to and during the MHW in June. In total, 5 vehicles were deployed consisting of one Seaglider in the Rockall Trough 33 (Ellett Array), two Slocum gliders (PELAgIO) east of the Firth of Forth and a further two Slocum gliders (MOGli) east of Orkney, all performing continuous transects. All gliders were equipped with Seabird CT sails. Temperature observations from each glider were interpolated onto 6 hr time steps and a 1 m depth grid. The shallowest ‘good‘ depth cell (4 m) was taken to represent the near-surface temperature time-series. The SML depth was defined at each time step as the depth at which the temperature deviated from the surface value by more than 0.2 °C. Glider data are available through the British Oceanographic Data Centre ( https://linkedsystems.uk/erddap/files/Public_Glider_Data_0711/ ). Western Channel Observatory 34 (E1/L4) (Figs.   2 and 6 ) : The depth resolved temperature time-series at the WCO is maintained by station L4 and E1 occupations on a weekly and bi-weekly (monthly in winter) basis by research vessel (RV) Plymouth Quest. The Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) profiles are binned into 0.25 m averages between the sub-surface and sea-floor (L4: 50 m; E1: 80 m). From the temperature series, a monthly mean and associated standard deviation has been calculated (L4: 1988–2023; E1: 1903–2023) and anomalies determined for 2 m and 50 m depths. The condition of heatwave (coldwave) was determined by 1.28× standard deviation (equivalent to 90th centile in a Gaussian distribution), which was necessarily interpolated onto a daily grid from the monthly values so that individual data samples could be accurately assessed as crossing these thresholds. Data available on doi:10.5281/zenodo.10892078. EN4 35 (Fig.   S3 ): The EN.4.2.2 objective analyses which utilises the Gouretski and Reseghetti (2010) 36 XBT corrections and Gouretski and Cheng (2020) 37 MBT corrections were used in this work. PWP 38 (Fig.   S2 ) : We use the Price–Weller–Pinkel (“PWP”) one-dimensional upper ocean mixed layer model developed specifically for conditions of large diurnal solar radiance and demonstrated to have wide applicability and to out-perform more sophisticated mixing models 39 . The PWP model was forced with ERA5 hourly fluxes (S.W., L.W., Latent, Sensible, east and west turbulent stresses and E–P), covering the years 1973–2023. The background vertical diffusivity was set to Kz = 2e−5 m 2 s −1 . The model was run with a vertical grid size of 1 m and a time step of one hour. Each of the 51 individual simulations (January to July of 1973 to 2023) was initialised using an Argo TS profile from Jan 2023 (57 N 13 W) to control for decadal ocean heat and salt content variation, thus isolating the influence of air/sea exchange on the seasonal development in each of the years and allowing for a comparative ocean response analysis between the years. OSTIA 16 (Fig.   1 ) : The Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Ice Analysis provides daily gap-free maps of Foundation Sea Surface Temperature at 0.05° × 0.05° horizontal grid resolution in near real time, using in-situ and satellite data from both infra-red and microwave radiometers. https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00165 . Ocean reanalyses: OSTIA_CLIM 16 (Fig.   1 ) : Climate quality version of the OSTIA SST analysis, similar to the near real time product but produced in slower time using reprocessed, climate quality, in situ and satellite observations. We used the 1982–2012 daily average as reference climatology. https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00168 . Ocean model simulations (forecast or re-analysis): OCN_amm7_RAN 40 (Fig.   S4 ) : 30-year (1993–2023) reanalysis from the Met Office NWS forecasting ocean assimilation model (NEMO) run on the AMM7 NWS domain, 7 km resolution, with tides. OCN_amm7_RAN assimilates satellite SST, and in situ temperature and salinity. https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00059 . OCN_amm7_proj 26 (Fig.   6 , S 16 – 20 ) : An ensemble of physical marine climate projections using with the same model as OCN_amm7_RAN have recently been released. A HadGEM3-GC3.05 Perturbed Parameter Ensemble, run under the RCP8.5 scenario, was dynamically downscaled for the NWS with NEMO AMM7. The 12 ensemble members were run as transient simulations (from 1990 to 2098). The monthly mean data was released on the CEDA Archive https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/ , https://doi.org/10.5285/edf66239c70c426e9e9f19da1ac8ba87 ). WAVamm15_RAN (Fig.   S9 ) : Wave hindcast using WAVEWATCH III for the North-West European Shelf with a two-tier Spherical Multiple Cell grid mesh (3 and 1.5 km cells). The model is forced by lateral boundary conditions from a Met Office Global wave hindcast. The atmospheric forcing is given by ERA5. https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00060 . Coupled model simulations: CPL (Figs.   3 and S 7 ) : Atmosphere-ocean-wave coupled simulation using the updated UKC3 coupled system 17 . It couples the Met Office Unified Model & land surface (JULES) using Regional Atmosphere and Land 2 (RAL2 41 ) scientific configuration, currently operational at the Met Office, with a shelf-sea ocean (NEMO, Atlantic Margin Model 1.5 km configuration, operational 42 ) and ocean surface waves WAVEWATCH III (operational), coupled together using OASIS3-MCT libraries. The simulations were started on June 1st from Met Office operational analyses and lateral boundary conditions (LBC). Evaluation of the coupled model is provided in Supplementary Material, Section 2 (Fig.  S26 – 3 ). CPLics2020, CPLics2021, CPLics2022 (Fig.   S7 ) : Same as CPL but using initial conditions and LBCs for the ocean for June 2020, 2021, 2022 respectively. Atmospheric model simulations: ATMostia (Figs.   4 and 5 ) : Same atmosphere and land as CPL above but its SST is OSTIA_2023 (run for a clean comparison with OSTIA_CLIM). ATMclim (Figs.   4 and 5 ) : Same as above but SST is from OSTIA_CLIM averaged daily over 1982–2012. ATMostia_ens and ATMclim_ens (Figs.   5 and S 15 ) : Same set-up as ATMostia but run as an 18-member ensemble forecast started on June 19 th for a 5-day forecast 43 . An ensemble is best to assess impact of SST on hourly precipitation or cloud features, as changes in a single hindcast member for such a short window would be affected by internal variability. The data underlying the main figures is provided here: 10.5281/zenodo.10892078. Atmospheric reanalysis: ERA5 38 (Fig.   S8 ) : Global atmospheric reanalysis produced under the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) 44 . Annual time series of SST and surface heat flux components with monthly data averaged over the NW European shelf were plotted for 1980–2023. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.143582cf

Code availability

The code underlying the main figures is provided here https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10892078 .

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Acknowledgements

The Western Channel Observatory is funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), grant number NE/R015953/1. PELAgIO is part of the ‘The Ecological Consequences of Offshore Wind’ (ECOWind) programme, grant number NE/X00886X/1. JT, SB, AA, RR, DC were supported were supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by DSIT. This work also benefitted from funding from the UK government / DSIT Earth Observation Investment Package https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/earth-observation-investment/projects-in-receipt-of-funding . Ellett Array glider, SJ and MI were funded by NERC programmes CLASS NE/R015953/1 and OSNAP NE/K010700/1. We thank Ciaran O’Donnell and the crew of the RV Celtic Explorer who gathered the Marine Institute profiles. We thank the WesCon field campaign which triggered this analysis. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve the manuscript. © Crown Copyright, Met Office.

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Contributions

S.B. led the coupled & atmospheric experiments and coordinated/wrote the article, R.R. did the OSTIA & OCN_amm7_RAN data analysis, T.S. provided & analysed WCO data, J.T. ran and analysed the OCN_amm7_proj, J.G. provided EN4 & ERA5 figures, J.H. advised on global/North Atlantic drivers, J.W. and S.J. analysed the glider data, M.I. ran and analysed the PWP data, G.N., B.B. and E.D. provided CTD data, A.A. analysed the OSTIA trends, J.C. and H.L. developed the UKC3 coupled capability, BG analysed wave data, V.F.L. wrote the introduction, H.L. helped running atmospheric model with different SSTs, S.M. and L.B. ran and analysed ATMostia_ens & ATMclim_ens simulations, D.C. provided CMIP6 weather regime figure, G.D. helped with atmospheric model evaluation, M.W. maintains OSTIA and provided access to it.

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Berthou, S., Renshaw, R., Smyth, T. et al. Exceptional atmospheric conditions in June 2023 generated a northwest European marine heatwave which contributed to breaking land temperature records. Commun Earth Environ 5 , 287 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01413-8

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• Israeli Views of the Israel-Hamas War

2. Israeli views of Biden, the U.S. and diplomacy in resolving the conflict

Table of contents.

• Views of the Israeli military response against Hamas
• Attitudes toward Israel’s war cabinet
• Current concerns about the war
• Confidence in Biden
• Views of how Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war
• Who is Biden favoring in the conflict, or is he striking the right balance?
• Views of the U.S.
• Who Israelis want to play a role in diplomatically resolving the war
• Success against Hamas
• Israel’s future national security
• The future of Gaza
• Views of Palestinian leaders
• Palestinian statehood and coexistence
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

In our survey fielded from March 3 to April 4, 2024 – prior to the Biden administration’s statement about halting the shipment of some arms to Israel – Israelis offer somewhat mixed reviews of President Joe Biden and his actions during the conflict.

For example, while 57% of Israelis express confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs, a similar share (60%) disapprove of his handling of the ongoing war. Still, roughly seven-in-ten Israelis want the U.S. to play a major role in diplomatically resolving the conflict, more than say this about the United Nations or any other country we asked about.

A slim majority of Israelis (57%) have confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

Overall, older Israelis are more confident in Biden than younger Israelis. For example, among Israelis ages 65 or older, 69% express at least some confidence in Biden, compared with 56% of those ages 18 to 29.

Israelis on the ideological right or center are more confident in Biden than those on the left. About six-in-ten on the right or in the center express confidence in Biden, compared with roughly half of Israelis who place themselves on the left.

Jewish Israelis also have more confidence in Biden than Arab Israelis do (66% vs. 21%). About half of Arabs say they have no confidence at all in Biden to do the right thing on the world stage.

Confidence in Biden is tied to people’s approval of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Israelis who approve of his handling of the war are much more confident in him than those who disapprove (92% vs. 33%). Additionally, Israelis who think Biden is striking the right balance between support for Israelis and Palestinians are much more confident in him to do the right thing regarding world affairs (84% confident) than those who say he is favoring Israel too much (36%) or the Palestinians too much (39%).

How views of Biden have changed over time

Confidence in Biden among Israelis is down from 68% last year and closer to the share who had confidence in him in 2022 (60%). Israeli Jews’ views follow the same pattern.

In contrast, among Israeli Arabs, views of Biden have declined significantly since 2022. (We were unable to survey in Israel during the first year of Biden’s presidency because of the COVID-19 pandemic .)

While support declined since last year among all ideological groups, the greatest decreases have come among those in the center (down 20 percentage points) and on the left (down 21 points). Meanwhile, confidence among those on the right has fallen much less (down 7 points).

More Israelis disapprove than approve of how Biden is dealing with the conflict between Israel and Hamas (60% vs. 39%).

Arabs in Israel are more critical of Biden’s handling of the war than Jews (86% vs. 53%). Indeed, 71% of Arabs say they strongly disapprove of his approach to the conflict. Views among Jewish Israelis are more mixed.

As with overall confidence in Biden, opinions about which side he favors in the conflict are related to evaluations of how he has handled the war. Those who say Biden is striking the right balance are more likely to approve of his handling of the conflict (63%) than those who say he is either favoring the Israelis (28%) or the Palestinians (16%) too much.

Roughly four-in-ten Israelis say Biden is favoring each group the right amount while roughly a quarter each think he is either favoring the Israelis (27%) or the Palestinians (25%) too much.

Arab Israelis (86%) overwhelmingly say Biden is favoring the Israelis too much. Only 11% of Jewish Israelis share this view. Instead, about half of Jews (48%) say he’s striking the right balance, and an additional 32% say he is favoring the Palestinians too much.

Those on the left are most likely to say Biden favors the Israelis too much, while those in the center are most likely to say he is favoring each group the right amount. Those on the right are most likely to say he is favoring the Palestinians too much.

The largest share of Israelis across age groups say Biden is striking the right balance. However, those ages 50 and older are more likely to say this than those ages 18 to 49 (46% vs. 38%). Younger Israelis are instead more likely than older Israelis to say that Biden is favoring the Israelis too much (30% vs. 22%).

Israelis broadly view the U.S. in a positive light: 77% have a favorable view of the country, including 43% who say they have a very favorable opinion. While the U.S. is still largely popular, the share of Israelis who have a favorable view of it fell 10 points since last year, when 87% held this view.

Demographic patterns in views of the U.S. are similar to confidence in Biden:

• Jewish Israelis are much more likely than Arab Israelis to have a favorable view of the U.S. (90% vs. 29%). Among Arabs, favorability ratings of the U.S. are at an all-time low, having dropped 15 points since 2023.
• Views of the U.S. are generally more positive among Israelis on the ideological right (85%) and center (84%) than on the left (55%). While favorable views are down from last year among those across the ideological spectrum, the decrease is three times larger among those on the left (down 22 points) than those in the center or on the right (both down 7 points).
• Israelis ages 50 and older are more likely than their younger counterparts to have a favorable view of the U.S. (85% vs. 72%).

Additionally, Israelis who have confidence in Biden are more likely to have favorable views of the U.S. than those who have less confidence (97% vs. 51%). Similarly, those who approve of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war have more favorable views of the U.S. than those who disapprove (97% vs. 64%).

In the survey conducted March 3 to April 4, 2024 – amid off-again, on-again ceasefire negotiations mediated by Egypt and Qatar with involvement by senior U.S. officials – a large majority of Israelis (72%) said the U.S. should play a major role in diplomatically resolving the war between Israel and Hamas.

Egypt received the next largest share of support for diplomatic involvement, with 45% of Israelis saying it should play a major role.

On the other end of the spectrum, just 27% of Israelis support Qatar playing a major role; similar shares say this about Saudi Arabia (29%) and the United Nations (24%).

Support for a major U.S. role is broadly popular across the Israeli ideological spectrum. However, those on the left are more open than those on the right to involvement by other diplomatic actors.

Both Jews (74%) and Arabs (63%) in Israel favor the U.S. playing a major part in resolving the Israel-Hamas war.

However, Arabs are more likely than Jews to support each of the other diplomatic actors asked about playing a major role. In fact, about as many Arab Israelis support Qatar (66%) and Egypt (63%) taking on major roles as support the U.S. doing so (63%).

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