RRI Tools

Signatories

The signatories1 of this Concordat are:

• Universities UK
• GuildHE
• Research Councils UK
• The Royal Society
• The British Academy
• The Royal Academy of Engineering
• The Wellcome Trust
• Higher Education Funding Council for England
• Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
• The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council
• Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland
• The National Institute for Health Research
• The Department of Health
• Scottish Government Health Directorates
• British Heart Foundation
• Technology Strategy Board

Supporters

• Academy of Medical Sciences
• Academy of Social Sciences
• Association of Graduate Careers
• Advisory Services Association of Medical Research
• Charities Association of Research Managers and Administrators
• British Educational Research Association
• CRAC: The Career Development Organisation
• Council for Science and Technology
• Equality Challenge Unit
• Institute of Biology
• Institute of Physics
• Modern Universities Research Group
• National Research Staff Association
• The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• The 1994 Group
• The Biochemical Society
• The Biosciences Federation
• University Alliance
• UK Higher Education Europe Unit
• Universities HR (formerly UPA)
• UK Resource Centre for Women in SET
• Vitae, incorporating the UK GRAD Programme
• and UKHERD

The UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers is an agreement between funders and employers of research staff to improve the employment and support for researchers and research careers in UK higher education. 

It sets out clear standards that research staff can expect from the institution that employs them, as well as their responsibilities as researchers.

Principles:

1. Recognition of the importance of recruiting, selecting and retaining researchers with the highest potential to achieve excellence in research.
2. Researchers are recognised and valued by their employing organisation as an essential part of their organisation’s human resources and a key component of their overall strategy to develop and deliver world-class research.
3. Researchers are equipped and supported to be adaptable and flexible in an increasingly diverse, mobile, global research environment.
4. The importance of researchers’ personal and career development, and lifelong learning, is clearly recognised and promoted at all stages of their career.
5. Individual researchers share the responsibility for and need to pro-actively engage in their own personal and career development, and lifelong learning.
6. Diversity and equality must be promoted in all aspects of the recruitment and career management of researchers.
7. The sector and all stakeholders will undertake regular and collective review of their progress in strengthening the attractiveness and sustainability of research careers in the UK.