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EURAXESS Researchers in motion

Vitae

Vitae

The non-profit programme Vitae, is the global leader in supporting the professional development of researchers, understanding these as anyone training or trained in research, whether they continue in academia or use their professional skills in a career outside the academia.

Vitae is part of The Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) Ltd, with over 45 years' experience in enhancing the skills and careers of researchers. It was jointly funded by the UK Research Councils and the UK Higher Education Funding Bodies, and since 2015, they have been a self-sustaining international membership organisation with over 183 member organisations – most of whom are based in the UK.

Vitae supports the professional development of the researchers within the member organizations through a number of activities such as

  • Research and innovation to influence the development and implementation of policy
  • Training and resources
  • The organization of events
  • Consultancy services

 

Engagement activities

Industry mentoring

Vitae’s focus is on strengthening the employability of researchers both at PhD and postdoctoral levels, on skills training, on collaboration across sectors, and on an increased understanding between labour sector demands and university missions. This way, Vitae’s activities are instrumental in preparing researchers for intersectorally mobile careers.

Thus, with the direct and/or virtual support of Vitae, member organisations can

  • Established programmes for researchers at all stages of their career (R1-R4)
  • Develop tailored training programmes to suit particular needs or specific topics, such as “Becoming an enterprising researcher”, “A mentoring approach to research supervision”, “Building your research profile”
  • Learn train-the-trainer methods which enable an institution to build in-house capabilities and drive innovation in the training of researchers.

Vitae is also very active on regularly analysing research careers in the UK, gathering key information to framework any kind of career development services:

  • The Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS) gathers the anonymous views of research staff (postdoctoral researchers) in UK higher education institutions about their experiences, career aspirations and career development opportunities.
  • The Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey (PIRLS) gathers anonymous views and experiences from principal investigators in relation to their role as managers and leaders of researchers and research groups.
  • The publication series “What do researchers do?” explores the destinations and career paths of doctoral graduates and how they contribute to society, culture and economy.

 

Stakeholders involved:

Vitae’s organisational membership is based on the number of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers based at the institution. All researchers and staff within these institutions automatically acquire Vitae membership and can access membership resources. Other organisations with a commitment to the development of researchers, but not employing researchers themselves, are eligible for affiliate membership.

Membership provides access to Vitae’s resources, news, policy intelligence, and events

Much of Vitae’s material has been developed in partnership with members and other stakeholder organisations. Its membership approach invites continuous development of resources, bottom-up participation, and new ideas for collaboration

However, while Vitae already provides services and membership internationally, both within the EU and beyond, the framework conditions across Europe may not be entirely comparable to those of the UK.

 

What can EURAXESS learn from this?

Vitae became the first official EURAXESS career development centre thanks to the wide catalogue of services offered to member organizations. But beyond the direct services provided, invests a substantial share of its budget on monitoring and evaluation, on one hand to measure the immediate outcome of Vitae’s own activities, but also to assess the broader outcomes of a changing culture of researcher development. This way they play a key role on the development of the appropriate framework conditions:

  • A holistic culture of PhD training removing much of the reluctance against time spent on skills development
  • Setting a national/regional network of academic and non-academic institutions sharing a concern for adequate training and demonstrating a willingness to cooperate
  • Creating a demand on the side of early-career researchers to be provided with training and development opportunities;
  • Increasing the expectation on the side of employers to be able to hire graduates with high employability skills;
  • Getting higher education institutions prepared to invest in researcher development out of their own funds;
  • Fostering a close link with policy makers in the national government (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy), in funding agencies (Research Councils UK) and internationally.

 

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