The first Slovak scientific institution to be awarded the “HR Excellence in Research”
On 13th of July 2020, Slovak Academy of Sciences became the 1st Slovak scientific institution awarded the “HR Excellence in Research“ quality mark. This quality mark is awarded by the European Commission. SAS committed itself to implement and sustain 40 principles of the "European Charter of Researchers and Code of Conduct for Recruitment of Researchers" as part of the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R).
This commitment involves incorporating the principles of the Charter and the Code into institutional policies and the human resources management strategies with the aim to promote the organization as a workplace that provides attractive career and quality working conditions to its creative workforce.
In order to harmonize procedures in the individual SAS Institutes with the principles of the Charter and the Code, implementation will be carried out within the 45 actions defined in the Action Plan. The compliance rate varies among SAS Institutes, so the implementation of the action plan will be tailored to the real needs of a particular SAS Institute. A great emphasis will be placed on sharing best practices between the SAS Institutes.
Most of the measures taken at central level will have a framework or recommendation character and the SAS Institutes will be left free to take their own measures to match their current situation and needs. The SAS Institutes will be provided with the necessary synergies and methodological support.
The goals we want to achieve by following these steps are:
- To be more open to foreign employees – by translating the necessary regulations, documents, forms into English, improving the communication skills in English for technical and administrative staff;
- To unify and formalize certain procedures – by filing and investigating ethical issues, dealing with complaints, appeals, backing up data, storing and sharing data, evaluating researchers, recruiting and selecting researchers, preparing the necessary internal rules (e.g. on ethical issues, intellectual property rights, etc.);
- To support career development and counselling and continuous education – by preparation and publication of career plans, career development strategies, career guidance schemes and mentoring, management training;
- To make all necessary documents available to (new) staff and raise awareness of employees – by preparation of a bilingual welcome information package, training of scientists on ethical issues, intellectual property rights;
- To harmonize the recruitment process with the OTM-R (Open, Transparent and Merit-Based Recruitment) principles – by developing a SAS OTM-R policy, preparing the necessary templates, manuals, documents, training for relevant persons, using different forms of recruitment;
- To analyze the options of improving working conditions for researchers with a special emphasis on selected groups – by improving remuneration schemes, facilitating public procurement conditions, balancing family and career life, enabling better access for disabled researchers, creating posts for doctoral students and postdocs.
Monika Tináková