HRS4R project blog “HR Excellence in Research-Award”
HRS4R project blog "HR Excellence in Research-Award"
Welcome to our HRS4R project blog!
We are delighted that you are following our project, “Human Resources Strategy for Researchers” (HRS4R)! This platform serves as a means to share all updates and developments related to the project as we strive to achieve the “HR Excellence in Research Award.”
Throughout all phases of our project, it is crucial to establish a strong foundation within the organisation for working with the principles. We encourage all research employees to actively participate by providing comments and collaborating on this project.
Our collective efforts and contributions in this project will steer the development and improvement of our support systems for researchers in the years to come. If you wish to learn more about why BTH is working on this project, you can find more information here: HRS4R.
Now, without further ado, let’s dive into our latest status updates!
July 2024
We’ve Received the HR Excellence in Research Award!
We are excited to share that our institution has been honored with the “HR Excellence in Research” award! This recognition follows an evaluation by independent reviewers, who praised our commitment to aligning our practices with the EU’s Charter & Code principles.
This award highlights our dedication to improving HR policies and ensuring fair and transparent recruitment and appraisal processes. We can now proudly use the HR Excellence in Research logo in our job ads on the EURAXESS portal and will be listed here: EURAXESS.
To keep this award, we will continue working on our action plan and undergo a review in two years. We are committed to enhancing our HR strategies and will keep you updated on our progress.
A big thank you to all researchers, teachers, and administrative staff at BTH for your hard work and dedication in making this achievement possible!
Alexandra and Marie of the HRS4R project team
May 2024
We are pleased to announce that our updated report, incorporating the reviewers’ suggestions for minor changes, has been submitted.
A big thank you to everyone involved for your hard work and dedication!
Mars 2024
We are excited to share that we have received feedback on our submitted report from the external reviewers. Their response has been very positive, with only a few minor adjustments needed.
Key Highlights
- Effective HRS4R Team: Despite being a small university, we have established a strong working group to implement the HRS4R principles. The preparatory team did excellent work, with only minor issues identified.
- Involvement of Research Community: We will provide more details on the composition of the group that identified gaps between our current policies and the Charter & Code principles, including representatives from different research categories (R1-R4). Additionally, more information on the survey contents, results, and participation rates will be included, along with how decisions were made regarding prioritizing gaps and actions.
- BTH Barometer: This initiative to promote staff awareness and monitor our HR strategy has been praised, along with the involvement of our local PhD Board and College of Professors.
- Improved Indicators: We will incorporate specific targets and both quantitative and qualitative indicators to effectively track our HRS4R progress, ensuring meaningful comparisons between initial objectives and implemented tasks.
- Visibility of HRS4R Webpage: We plan to enhance visibility by creating a direct link from our homepage or from a main section like Research/About.
Next Step
We are already working on the minor changes suggested and aim to resubmit by June 4th.
February 2024
Lina submits the application for the “HR Excellence in Research” award to the European Commission – finally!
We’re thrilled to announce that the GAP analysis, the OTM-R checklist, and the Action Plan are now officially published on the website and have been submitted to the EU Commission.
We extend our sincere thanks to the dedicated researchers at BTH whose active involvement played a crucial role in bringing this application to fruition. Your engagement and contributions remain the driving force behind our ongoing progress.
The implementation phase has commenced, and we will now proceed with planned actions. Here are some of them that we will focus on this year, but you can find more details on the HRS4R process at BTH:
- Develop updated templates for annual appraisal talks to better align with the distinctive professional developments of teachers and researchers.
- Enhance support for intellectual property rights (IPR).
- Improve information about experts in ethical aspects and encourage departments to integrate ethical principles into their discussions.
- Develop the BTH career webpage and establish a dedicated email address (career@bth.se) to handle inquiries from all interested parties.
It is still crucial to incorporate the opinions of BTH’s researchers and teachers into these actions to create a more appealing working environment, fostering the development and thriving of researchers and teachers at BTH.
December 2023
We are excited to share a significant update with you regarding our ongoing project! On Wednesday, December 1st, our dedicated team presented a series of proposed actions to the esteemed steering group. Following this presentation, the steering group had the opportunity to thoroughly contemplate these proposals until December 29th, when pivotal decisions were made concerning these initiatives.
We are particularly grateful for the active involvement of BTH’s esteemed researchers who contributed these proposals through a survey distributed over the summer. Your invaluable insights have been instrumental in shaping these actions. The collaborative efforts of our working group meticulously compiled and distilled these responses, resulting in the formulation of 10 proposed actions meticulously designed to address the 12 identified gaps highlighted in the comprehensive GAP analysis.
The exciting news is that these proposed actions will soon find their place on the HRS4R website! Stay tuned as we prepare to unveil and share these actions, marking a significant step forward in our collective endeavor to enhance and support the research environment.
Your engagement and contributions continue to be the cornerstone of our progress. Let’s look forward to the imminent unveiling of these initiatives and the positive impact they will bring to our research community.
Zoom-meeting HRS4R-team December 2023
October 2023
From August to October, our dedicated work group for HRS4R has been hard at work compiling the survey responses into actionable proposals. The work group experienced that it was truly fascinating to delve into the wealth of feedback we received from so many enthusiastic participants. The work group wants to extend their heartfelt gratitude to all the involved researchers and research administration!
The exciting part? Well, the action plans stemming from these responses are set to be unveiled this October for our steering commitee’s consideration. These proposals will shine a spotlight on significant improvements, particularly in the realms of career support, support for ethnic issues and intellectual property rights (IPR), as well as assistance for researchers in sharing their valuable findings with society. Stay tuned for the exciting developments ahead!
HRS4R-team-meeting October 2023
June 2023
During the spring, we conducted workshops with focus groups consisting of researchers/teachers and administrative employees who support researchers in various aspects. The purpose of these workshops was to gather their opinions on the 40 principles of HRS4R.
The outcome of the workshops highlighted opportunities for improvement in 12 principles. In order to determine the most suitable actions for these 12 principles, all employees will be asked to fill out and complete a questionnaire during the summer, until the end of August, to join the project.
March 2023
BTH’s application to start the project has been approved by the EU Commission. Our next step in the project is to meet different target groups in several workshops. HRS4R thrives on honest and diverse feedback from our researchers, so we have booked workshops to analyze the gaps based on a European Charter. The results will then form a survey that will go out to all the researchers.
The focus group meeting in spring will be divided into following groups:
| Workshop | Date | Time | Language | Open |
| R1 (4–6 PhD students) | 2023-03-29 | 13-16 | English | 0 |
| R2 (4–6 postdoctors, associate senior lecturers) | 2023-05-08 | 13-16 | English | 2 |
| R3 (4–6 senior lecturers/docents) | 2023-04-14 | 13-16 | English | 0 |
| R4 (4–6 associate professors, professors) | 2023-04-19 | 9-12 | English | 1 |
| nr 5 Research support | 2023-04-11 | 09-12 | Swedish | 0 |
| nr 6 HR | 2023-05-04 | 13-16 | Swedish | 1 |
Lina & Alexandra (HRS4R team)
The group meeting will be held by Miles Davies, who is an expert in HRS4R and has worked with several Swedish institutions’ applications. The time for the meeting will be about 2-3h digitally.
You register your participation by mail to: lina.goransson@bth.se.
January 2023
Vice-Chancellor Mats Viberg submitted the application for the “HR Excellence in Research” award to the European Commission on January 25th, 2023. This is to welcome and support the European Commission’s initiative to ensure a supportive research environment for researchers and teachers.
A steering group was appointed to control the process and a work group was appointed to anchor the charter and guidelines, as well as examine the gaps and desirable actions from the researchers.
If you would like to learn more about the charter, here is a link to the documents: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter
BTH’s Vice-Chancellor Mats signs the HRS4R application