Benchmarking

HEI’s strategies for implementing the Concordat

The Concordat Coordinator, on behalf of the Concordat Strategy Group, launched a survey on 6 January of HEI’s approaches to staff development and their implementation of the Concordat. As well as providing valuable benchmarking, completion of the survey will help institutions demonstrate alignment with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (European Charter and Code).

The survey is open until 6 April 2010.

Please follow the link here to be taken straight to the online survey

Please follow the link here to see the original note to Vice Chancellors and Principals, including a full set of the questions

This survey has been designed to demonstrate to the European Commission that the UK higher education sector is working in alignment with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (the Charter and Code) and so allow institutions to use the Charter and Code logo and be listed on the Euraxess website

The survey seeks to review the policies and procedures of institutions and the strategic approach from the top levels of management. This survey will begin the process by which the UK higher education sector will demonstrate that it is meeting the principles of the Concordat and is aligned with the European Charter and Code.

Individual institutions may wish to publish their response or use it to formulate their action plan for implementing the Concordat and aligning with the Charter & Code. It is these published implementation plans and gap analyses, together with information on your QAA reviews and other relevant policies, that demonstrates your institutions commitment to the Concordat and to the Charter & Code.

Across the UK there will be a series of nation-wide approaches to demonstrating implementation of the Charter and Code through the biennial benchmarking processes for the Concordat. These will include re-running the HEI Strategies Survey:

• To enable HEIs to demonstrate that they have conducted their own internal assessment of their progress against their Implementation Strategies within the two year period;
• To demonstrate what progress has been made in implementing the Concordat and meeting its aims;
• To ascertain what revisions have been made to the Implementation Strategy in light of the internal audits conducted by institutions.

The Research Concordat Strategy Group is committed to publishing major reports on the progress of the Concordat every two years. By means of these reports, the Strategy Group will make sure that the UK conducts a through, rigorous and robust external evaluation of the efforts of the UK higher education sector to deliver the principles of the Concordat and the Charter and Code at least every four years.

Please follow the link here to view the UK mechanism for demonstrating sector-wide and institutional alignment with the European Charter and Code

Funders responses to the Concordat

It is critical to review the way in which funders implement the Concordat. There is a perception in higher education that – irrespective of funders’ terms and conditions – grant applications that include provision for the career development of researchers are seen as not competitive by review panels. This project reviews the policies, terms and conditions of grant, career development schemes and other practice within funding bodies.

Summary of Funders’ implementation plans – November 2009

Some funders have requested that their responses be published in full:

• BHFI implementation
• HEFCE Implementationn
• RCUK Implementation
• Wellcome Trust Implementation

Benchmarking Report

On 22 October 2009 the Strategy Group received a report on the development of the benchmarking programme that was authorised at their meeting on 22 January 2009. This includes an update on the six projects that were agreed that the January meeting and proposals for other projects in the future.
View benchmarking report

Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS)

In September 2009, Vitae published the aggregated results of the Careers in Research Online Survey. CROS is an in depth survey of research staff run by higher education institutions (HEIs) using the Bristol Online Survey (BoS) platform. It has been available to HEIs for several years, but in 2009 the 51 institutions that ran CROS made their results available to Vitae to carry out a UK wide assessment of the experiences of research staff across the sector. The survey is based on the responses of 5,908 members of research staff.
View Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS) website
View Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS): Analysis of aggregated UK results (PDF)