BU Research Blog

Good news – BU has been successful in retaining the European Commission HR Excellence in Research Award  and is now one of 97 Vitae UK member institutions in the UK who hold this award. In this current round of assessments, BU is one of four universities who have retained their award following the 6 year review. We offer our congratulations to all the other universities who have retained their award during this round.

The Award demonstrates BU’s commitment to aligning process and practice to the UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and, therefore, improving the working conditions and career development for research staff. In turn, this will improve the quantity, quality and impact of research for the benefit of UK society and the economy. The six year review required BU to highlight the key achievements and progress we have made since we first secured this Award in January 2013 and the reviews in 2015 and 2017. The submission also outlined the focus of our strategy, success measures and next steps for the next two years, with much of this pertinent and aligned to BU2025 plans.

Key achievements made at BU since 2017, in support of this agenda include:

• Significantly enhanced maternity, adoption and paternity/partner leave benefits and the promotion of initiatives to support work/life balance for BU staff
• The establishment of biannual meetings for BU’s researchers with representatives from Vitae
• The increased development and targeting of BU’s Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework (RKEDF), which references Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework and, through the Acorn Fund, provides support to our Early Career Researchers (ECRs).
• That BU will, again, be participating in both the Careers in Research Online Survey and Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey (CROS / PIRLS). Please watch out for further announcements.
• Progressing with the implementation of e-recruitment
• Supporting the Research Staff Association
• The establishment of our ECR Network
• Development Opportunities & Resources for Researchers now available along with other initiatives to support researchers at BU, along with further signposting to make our researchers welcome.

You can read our progress review and future action plan (2019-2020) in full on BU’s web pages dedicated to the Research Concordat.

In 2018, the Concordat was reviewed, and we eagerly await the outcome of this review and the subsequent sector consultation.

Read the full announcement on the Vitae website.

Please note that not all links in this post can be accessed outside Bournemouth University.