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Correspondence

Nature 450, 161 (8 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/450161a; Published online 7 November 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

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Time: research necessities make it hard to keep track

Robert J. O'Connell1

  1. Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, 303 Belmont Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01604, USA

Plans to impose effort-reporting on scientists, as mentioned in your Editorial 'On the paper trail' and News story 'Researchers criticized for poor time-keeping' (Nature 449, 508 and 512–513; 2007), will be difficult to implement. In practice, it is almost impossible to give an accurate estimate of effort, because scientists are rarely off the job, even when asleep.