Governance

Work to support the Researcher Development Concordat at Leeds is overseen by the Researcher Development Steering Group, chaired by the Head of Researcher Development and Culture.

This group has the responsibility for creating and evaluating our Concordat Implementation Plan and preparing the associated governance. Membership of this committee includes the Dean for Research Culture, Pro-Deans for Research and Innovation, researcher developers from OD&PL, Deputy Director of HR, an ECR academic champion, and postdoctoral representatives.

The group reports the Concordat Implementation plan and progress to the Research Culture Steering Group, chaired by the Deputy Director for Research Culture, and finally to Research and Innovation Board, chaired by our Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation, for final sign-off.

Signatory responsibilities

In signing up to the Concordat, the University of Leeds is committing to the following responsibilities: 

• Raise the visibility of the Concordat and champion its Principles within their organisation at all levels. 
• Identify a senior manager champion and associated group with relevant representation from across the organisation with responsibility for annual review and reporting on progress. 
• For organisations employing researchers, ensure that they are formally represented in developing and monitoring organisational efforts to implement the Concordat Principles. 
• Undertake a gap analysis to compare their policies and practice against the Concordat Principles. 
• Draw up and publish an action plan within a year of signing up to the Concordat. 
• Set up processes for systematically and regularly gathering the views of the researchers they fund or employ, to inform and improve the organisation’s approach to and progress on implementing the Concordat. 
• Produce an annual report to their governing body or equivalent authority, which includes their strategic objectives, measures of success, implementation plan and progress, which is subsequently publicly available. 

 What we are doing at Leeds:

• Ensuring support for Research Staff development is championed at the highest level through the Researcher Development Steering Group
• Holding regular Research Staff action group meetings with ECR reps and ECR champions to report to the steering group 
• Holding open meetings for researchers to meet with senior leaders  
• Running a researcher survey to help undertake our gap analysis 
• Published a Concordat Implementation Plan setting out our plans for researcher support 
• Ensuring we comply with the Concordat reporting and governance including annual reports, progress updates 

Our work implementing the principles of the Concordat led to us retaining the HR Excellence in Research award for 11 years, but following a consultation with our postdoctoral researchers, Researcher Development Steering Group and Research and Innovation Board, we decided to withdraw from the HR Excellence in Research Award. Instead, we have focussed our efforts on embedding the Concordat, ensuring researchers are at the core of our institutional plans as our activities to enhance our research environment evolve, in alignment with our strategic ambitions for Research Culture.