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The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers: supporting world-class research

The Concordat provides a single statement of the expectations and responsibilities of researchers, their managers, employers and funders. It is a national document with many signatories including Universities UK, HEFCE and the research councils UK. http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/505181/Concordat-to-Support-the-Career-Development-of-Researchers.html

The Concordat consists of a set of 7 principles set around 6 areas which as a university we seek to align our practice:

• Recruitment and Selection (principle 1)
• Recognition and Value (principle 2)
• Support and Career Development (principles 3 & 4)
• Researchers’Responsibilities (principle 5)
• Diversity and Equality (principle 6)
• Implementation and Review (principle 7)

The focus of the Concordat is on “employees engaged principally to undertake research, the majority of whom are necessarily supported by fixed-term project funding”. At York we believe these principles should extend, where appropriate to our research students. The Concordat is referenced in all the Research Councils’ Delivery Plans and there is an expectation that research intensive universities who employ researchers will be able to demonstrate alignment with the principles.

How have York responded? In September 2010 the University of York became one of the first 10 HEIs to achieve EU recognition which acknowledges our alignment with the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for their Recruitment. This was achieved by publishing the action plan which identifies how we are meeting or plan to meet the 7 principles of the Concordat. This was reviewed by the UK Concordat Strategy Group comprised of representatives from the research councils and other funding agencies and confirmed by an EU Group. All institutions in receipt of the ‘HR Excellence’ badge are required to submit a report detailing progress against their published action plan. The University of York will report back to the Vitae Concordat Strategy Group in September 2012. The implementation of the Concordat and achievement of the published action plan includes:

• The creation of a Concordat Steering Group comprising the PVC for Research, the Director of HR, the Director for Professional and Organisation Development, the Research Strategy and Policy Manager and the Director of the Researcher Development Team.
• The creation of a Concordat Implementation Group . This group includes representatives from support functions, senior academic staff, research staff and research students. The Steering Group oversee the activities of the group.
• All academic departments with research staff have produced individual action plans identifying how they are going to meet the seven principles and action plan.
• HR and relevant support functions have developed a separate action plan to address all other outstanding actions
• To enable sharing of good practice in the support of researchers a Concordat VLE has been created. All action plans and minutes of meeting are held on the VLE which is accessible to all members of the Steering and Implementation Group, academic co-ordinators and Chairs of Departmental Research Committees.

The implementation of the Concordat is being co-ordinated by Dr Karen Clegg. Please contact Karen for further details: karen.clegg@york.ac.uk.

Last Updated: 07 September 2010 | RDT rdt@york.ac.uk

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