The Sustainable Careers for Researcher Empowerment (SECURE) project will develop coordination and support measures to create, trial, implement, and mainstream a common Research Career Framework that offers a suite of options to support organisations in the recruitment, employment, training, development, progression, and mobility of researchers with the aim of improving research careers and reducing career precarity.
The SECURE project is an EU-funded project implemented by an eighteen-organisations consortium led by The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN).
The collective objective of the SECURE project partners is to improve the attractiveness and reduce the precariousness of research careers over a period of 27 months (January 2023 – March 2025).
The specific objectives are:
– Objective 1: Develop a comprehensive Research Career Framework integrating relevant existing policies. The RCF will offer a comprehensive suite of options to organisations employing researchers to improve the attractiveness of research careers, reduce career precarity and recognise key career transition points. The RCF will integrate existing policies and recommendations including the revision of the Charter and Code, revision of ESCO, new European Competence Framework for Researchers, and upcoming Council Recommendations on a European Framework to Attract and Retain Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurial Talents.
– Objective 2: Develop a range of tenure track-like models integrating best practices from existing use cases. The TTL models will offer a variety of TTL models to support organisations employing researchers in the implementation of TTL models. The TTL models will integrate existing policies and recommendations as well as feedback from interviews with selected best practice organisations on funding schemes, recruitment, employment, training, development, and progression for researchers that are employed in TTL models.
– Objective 3: Conduct trials at organisations to implement, test, and refine the Research Career Framework. The trials will implement aspects of the draft RCF including TTL models at RPOs, an RFO, and a recruitment agency selected to test the practicality of and refine the RCF. Scoping exercises will map the RCF onto existing activities and integration plans will propose how to adopt the RCF at trial organisations. Action plans of selected activities from integration plans will steer the trials which will be monitored and evaluated.
– Objective 4: Engage research stakeholders for co-design and validation of the Research Career Framework. The RCF and TTL models will be developed and refined in stages in collaboration with the trial organisations and external stakeholders. The trial organisations representing key stakeholders in the community will play a crucial role in developing and testing the draft RCF and TTL models. Best practice organisations that have implemented TTL models will be interviewed to gain deeper insight and develop the TTL models. The stakeholder community will lastly be consulted widely on the draft RCF and TTL models
– Objective 5: Mainstream the Research Career Framework through EURAXESS, policy briefs, and a summit and policy roundtable. SECURE will mainstream the RCF including the TTL models among the research stakeholder community. The mainstreaming will involve developing a strategy for promoting the RCF primarily throughout the EURAXESS network, developing policy briefs promoting the RCF and key aspects of the RCF, and organising a closing summit and policy roundtable for the stakeholder community on the RCF.
