Step-by-step guide to the HR Excellence in Research (HREiR) Award renewal

• each cohort will be invited to a drop-in call to pose any questions to Vitae and share practice with other institutions renewing their Award – this takes place around 12 weeks before the deadline
• institutions can provide draft documentation to Vitae as email attachments for comments and feedback in advance of final submission to external peer reviewers – this should ideally be minimum 8-10 weeks before the deadline and no later than 3 weeks before the deadline

• publish your documents on a publicly-visible page on their website for both internal staff and external peer reviewers to access (tip: notify your web/IT team as soon as possible to ensure the documents are published online prior to the deadline)
• send the link/URL to this page to concordat@vitae.ac.uk
• following submission, institutions should proceed with implementing their action plan.

• each institution’s documentation will be reviewed by three peer reviewers – reviewers will expect to have access to all documentation from previous award renewals as well, which should be live and publicly available on the institution’s website
• reviewers will undertake a one-hour video call interview to clarify aspects of the report and to provide expertise and input (Vitae will contact you to arrange the date and time).

Following a desk review of your documentation, representatives from your institution will join the peer reviewer team for a one-hour interview held virtually over Zoom to answer any further queries that the reviewers may have.

Institutions should bring either three or four representatives to the video call interview:

1. A ‘strategic lead’ – someone responsible for oversight of the Award process and Researcher Development Concordat implementation, and who has the capacity to talk about how these align with institutional strategy more generally (tip: an academic lead, such as a Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research is preferred)

2. An ‘operational lead’ – someone responsible for more regular management of the Award process and Concordat implementation

3. Mandatory: a researcher representative, who will:

Essential

• have lived experience and understanding of the support and activities described in the backwards action plan (i.e., your recent progress).

Desirable

• be a current member of research-only staff, i.e., the Concordat’s priority audience
• be a current or former representative of research staff, such as through a research staff association or postdoc forum
• be a current member of the relevant Concordat/HREiR Implementation- or Steering Group
• have been involved in assessing progress against actions in the backwards action plan
• have been involved in developing actions in the forward action plan

4. Optional: a ‘silent observer’ – this individual may not contribute to the call in any way, but will benefit from observing the discussion (tip: this is useful for legacy planning where a new individual may assume responsibility for the Award process)

In advance of the call you may request to bring on an additional representative who contributes to the call instead of the silent observer. You cannot have a 4th representative and a silent observer, its one or the other.

Though rare, the peer reviewers have the right to cancel the interview before or during the call should they feel that the institutional representatives do not possess the perspectives discussed above. Contact Vitae if you have any uncertainty over which representatives to involve.

During the interview, the peer reviewers will:

• explore the progress, achievements, challenges and plans set out in the submission
• clarify any areas where the peer reviewers would like to see more evidence
• ask any further questions about interesting, new or exemplary practice

Based on both your documentation and the interview call, the reviewers assessment will be made on your institution’s capacity to:

• show how the internal evaluation was undertaken
• show how researchers’ views were taken into account during the evaluation
• indicate how the Award/Concordat work links with existing “quality assurance (QA)” and other implementation mechanisms
• show progress against the strategy outlined at the last review (and also in previous action plans and reviews if applicable), including indicators and metrics where appropriate
• provide details of your key achievements and progress against all Concordat principles
• describe a clear strategy, actions, accountability, and deadlines covering the next 3-year period (at least).

The external reviewers will meet after the interview to discuss any potential recommendations and/or requests to provide to institutions, along with their proposed outcome from the review.

The external peer reviewers submit their review report to the UK HREiR Award panel, which meets to deliberate on- and ratify the recommended outcome from the peer review team.

Potential outcomes following review are:

1. Pass
2. Pass with recommendations
3. Changes are required before retention of the award can be confirmed
4. Substantial changes are needed and the institution is placed ‘on hold’

Should an institution be required to make changes prior to confirming retention of the Award, the following steps will take place based on the specific outcome:

• The institution is given usually three months (can vary) to make the required changes, before resubmitting the revised documentation
• The UK panel reviews these changes and determines whether they have met the criteria for confirming retention of the Award
• If not, the panel has the option of removing the Award or providing further time (max. three more months) for the institution to resubmit
• The UK panel again reviews these changes and determines whether they have met the criteria for confirming retention of the Award
• If the criteria have not been met, the Award is removed from the institution.