The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) is committed to continuous improvement in selection and working conditions, and in the career prospects of its researchers. Since its foundation, the UPC has created a series of specific units and developed a set of regulations and practices for this purpose, culminating in 2013 with the University’s endorsement of the European Charter and Code for Researchers, as the aim of providing a stimulating and favourable working environment for researchers and research-related personnel  that allows their professional growth and development.

Following this commitment, we started designing a new Human Resources Strategy for Researchers according to the Charter and Code in order to improve in selection and working conditions towards the application for the "HR Excellence in Research" accreditation. As a culmination of this work carried out UPC  obtained (July 2017) an official acknowledgment by the European Commission for HR Excellence in Research and  the certified Logo of the program: "HR Excellence in research”. 

2017-2019 Action Plan

As a result of the internal analysis [preambleupc.pdf] and the identification of shortfalls and potential opportunities, a Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R)  and a 2017-2019 Action Plan [Actionplan20171029.pdf] was drawn up and validated by all of the relevant stakeholders.

This was an ambitious initiative in so far as the UPC aimed to carry out a comprehensive assessment that would lead to the clear identification of gaps and, above all, potential opportunities on which to work.

The Action Plan provided a real analysis of the situation of the UPC based on objective criteria, which could be used to design additional actions for improvement and create new ones.

• Improve and optimise current resources.
• Improve existing channels of communication and relations, and establish new ones.
• Improve mechanisms for welcoming researchers to the University.

The implementation of the Plan was monitored by the Steering Committee and the UPC’s Research Committee  and the results were made available to the university community.

To design a new action plan 2019-2023 several actions were taken:

1)Steering Committee and  executive committee meetings: Objectives, methodology and roles were discussed. As well as the readjustment of either the Committee, and working group members, in order to become more efficients.

2) Working Group meeting: including meetings with the diferent units of the university for the evaluation of the implementation of the action plan. The coordinator of the Working Group was responsible of the preliminary drafting of the report, which was transferred to the Executive committee for its revision and to the Steering committee for the validation.

3) GAP Analisys: The gap analysis  [revised-action-plan.pdf] report of the 2019-2023 Action Plan. According to the outcome of the analysis, these were the main areas of improvement  indentified   

1. to Apply corrective measures and readjust the deadlines

2. to Reinforce the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment Policy for Researchers by monitoring quality of the process and creating specific guidelines for panel composition and selection of Group Leaders.

 3.to  Further support the talent through career development actions and activities, including career advice and mentoring programmes

 The action plan has been updated accordingly, and as a result the following changes were included :  

- fine tune the 9 Actions of the Action Plan 2017-2019. Timescale update and revision of the indicators

- add 2 new actions.

The new Action Plan 2019-2023 [Actionplan2019-2023.pdf] was  approved by the Steering Committee.  

The UPC HRS4R Working Group is  in charge of  assessing the implementation of the Action Plan,  following up the progress, and  reporting to the Executive and Steering committee.