As an HR Manager in R&I activities, you have to face a lot of challenges: mobility of researchers, global competition to attract talent, open, transparent and merit-based recruitment, efficient governance, favourable working conditions, career development and guidance towards innovation and excellence.
In order to help you address all these challenges, the European Commission provided a set of recommendations on the rights and obligations of researchers and research institutions - The Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.
The ‘HR Strategy for Researchers’ - HRS4R - supports research institutions and funding organizations in the implementation of the Charter & the Code in their policies and practices.
And the HRS4R online tool is the web platform to manage the whole procedure and its different phases. Using the same dashboard, you can apply for the “HR Excellence in Research Award”, monitor the implementation of the action plan and get through the evaluation cycles.
More than 1000 organisations in 34 countries have already endorsed the Charter & Code principles.
Endorsement of the Charter & Code is the best way to demonstrate your initial commitment to facilitate the open labour market for researchers and make research an attractive career.
The HR award comes with benefits for the institution and the researchers’ community that it serves.
Institutions highlighted the value of the HR award as a strong contribution to strategic goals: improving the quality and impact of research and facilitating institutional policies and practices to select, develop and retain the best staff to pursue excellence.
The HRS4R also contributes to the better preparation of researchers for wide employability. Organisations have also valued the opportunities the award brings to share practice with other award-holders and organisations working towards the award.
Before to enroll in the HRS4R procedure, make sure you read the HRS4R Procedural guidelines, experts reports and application templates. The overview of the HRS4R procedure and the Technical Guidelines are also very useful. You can download them from the HRS4R webpages on EURAXESS.
The HRS4R is a long-term process and commitment. It is structured into three phases. The first is the “initial phase”. The institution
endorses the Charter & Code, provides a ‘Gap analysis’- which is a self-assessment of the current policies versus the principles of the Charter & Code, fills in a dedicated “Open Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment” checklist and designs the initial action plan.
All the four documents make the application for the HR Excellence in Research Award. The institution has 12 months to prepare and submit the application, after which a first assessment will be carried out.
In case of positive outcome, the institution is granted the HR Award. Otherwise, you may receive recommendations on how to improve the application, update it and resubmit it for a new assessment process.
The initial assessment is performed by a panel of external experts assigned by the European Commission.
After the institution is acknowledged with the HR Award, you can proceed with the ‘Implementation phase‘. You have 24 months to implement the initial action plan and submit your activity review for the Interim Assessment.
At this stage, the institution is not in jeopardy of losing the HR award. You will receive recommendations on how to further improve the action plan in the next years.
The ‘Award Renewal’ is the third phase and follows at 36 months after the Interim Assessment. The institution continues the implementation of the improved action plan and submits the activity review for the Award Renewal Assessment. The HR Award may be renewed in cycles, every 36 months. Once every two renewals, a site visit in your institution will be organized, part of the assessment process.
During the whole procedure, you will be accompanied by the European Commission for screening and eligibility matters. External experts will contribute to the assessments and provide you with helpful recommendations.
You are now ready to initiate your HR award application. You just need to register an organization account on EURAXESS, if you don’t have any, and assign an HR Admin, who will be granted with access rights to the HRS4R e-tool.
In case of need, for procedural questions, send your queries at RTD-CHARTER@EC.EUROPA.EU and, for technical matters, contact the help desk at SUPPORT@EURAXESS.ORG,