Reporting Guidance

The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers is a continuous improvement tool for institutions, funders and research institutes to improve their research culture, processes and behaviours to best support researchers at all career stages. Reporting requirements for the concordat are light-touch and flexible and should empower signatories to maintain consistent efforts to enhance their research environment, employment and professional development provision.

Concordat reporting process:

  1. Undertake a gap analysis to compare policies and practice against the Concordat Principles. If you have already conducted a gap analysis as part of the HR Excellence in Research Award process, this can be used for your Concordat evaluation.
  2. Draw up and publish an action plan within a year of signing up to the Concordat. If you have already approved an action plan as part of the HR Excellence in Research Award process, this can be used for Concordat action implementation.
  3. From the following year, produce a one/two-page annual report, to the governing body, or equivalent authority which details your progress in implementing your action plan. Annual reports should be made publicly available on institutional websites. The due date for your annual reports will be to the month your action plan was published.

The report should cover:

  • Strategic objectives for the reporting year (these can include longer-term objectives if activity is multi-year)
  • Activities implemented to meet strategic objectives
  • Measures of success
  • Proposals for improvement
  • Learnings from progress
  • Forward look to actions for the following year

Annual reports will be collected and evaluated by the Researcher Development Concordat Strategy Group, supported by Universities UK, to evaluate national progress.

A template to support annual reports will be published soon.