Implementation/Embedding the HRS4R process

General overview of the implementation process: (max. 1000 words)

      The implementation process started with a great interest from both our Working Group, Screening Committee and Director of the Institute. The employees of the Institute of Biophysics had a good understanding and appreciation of the HRS4R activity keeping in mind the Gap Analysis and significance of the HRS4R process. 
      Our aim to consolidate the position of a national as well as international centre for excellent research cannot be achieved without HR Award. Every year more than 50 scientists of IBP participate (as principal investigators) in national grant projects and educate more than 70 pre-graduate and post-graduate students. Also, many scientists are (were) principal investigators in international projects. We have increased the professional level of our scientist by better recruitment and selection (see Action 2), increased mobility (see Action 1), lectures (see Action 10), eductional activities (see Action 8) and evalution procedures (see Action 4 and 13.)
       We supported the mobility of young scientists and students (see Action 1). They can obtain financial support for the mobility (accommodation costs and daily allowances) provided by the Division of international cooperation of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In addition, we have established a new IBP-internal program focused on the support of international mobility of the students, who realize their PhD study at the Institute. We plan to provide this support in parallel with several activities offered by universities (e.g., Erasmus+, CEEPUS, ISEP, Stella Junior, etc.).
       Within the HR Award strategy, we will bolstered the evaluation of scientific results and other contributions (see Action 2 and 13). For example, during its on-site visit the International Advisory Board (ISAB) have evaluated all teams according to the presentations of their young scientists or students. The ISAB provided an independent evaluation of the best PhD students for the ISAB award.
      We have awarded students with the best diploma thesis and we have established the best paper of the year and other awards (see Action 5). If employees would like to increase their salaries, we have also established the “improvement status” as a part of institutional attestations, wherein employees coud introduce their results to the commission and could discuss how to improve their annual income (see Action 6).
     We have also strengthened more specific rules for the recruitment of R1-R4 positions (see Action 2). An Open-call for a new position have been advertised in scientific journals, EURAXESS, and on institutional web pages, the selection and feedback for candidates have been ensured The OTM-R principles have been estableshed (see Action 2 and Comment on the Implementation of OTM-R principles). We have also encouraged women in science (see Action 7 and 8). Scientists returning after parental leave have a long-term problem with the placement of their children in pre-school facilities, especially in nurseries (for children aged from 1 to 3 years). The management of the Institute aimed to maintain the newly built children's corner (nursery), which have been rented by a company taking care of preschool children. Therefore, the care for pre-school children will be on a high level and will be considered as an essential prerequisite for the recruitment of the highest quality researchers. In average 6 employees are interested in placing their children in such a pre-school facility (see Action 9).
        We have also organized courses in rethorics, ERC projects, science evalution, management, biostatistics, language courses, advanced computer graphics, Excell and 2 lectures on gender issues for employees (see Action 8). Our scientific and social activities have been presented to a broader audience through our PR manager and his team using web pages, Facebood, Twitter, and several academic or national scientific activites such Science Fair, Night of Scientists, Mendel Festival, Open Days, etc (see Action 11).
    In the case of evaluation/appraisal of the Institute and its departments, the expected implementation process represented relatively small improvements (already existing evaluation procedures are quite strong and robust). These improvements have been implemented relatively easily in the years 2022-2023. Career progression and evaluation are tightly related and can be connected by considering these aspects by the evaluation bodies (commissions, ISAB members). Job descriptions have been improved in connection with the more transparent evaluation. During the whole period 2022-2023, the focus of the ISAB have been directed to the most general problems of the Institute in order to support excellence in science (see Action 13).
      Our aim to strengthen the so-called scientific incubator, recruit talented scientists with the potential to build a new perspective team, and submit their projects to the ERC agency is in progress. Current departments are supported according to their size and scientific contributions. In the frame of HRS4R, several motivation tools have been established:  Internal Cooperation Award, the Application Award and the Scientific paper of the year. We also organized several advanced courses for scientists (advance graphics, biostatistics, Excell statistics, see Action 8).
      We have eliminated to a great extent gender imbalance; lectures on gender issues have been organized and presented in the Institute. We have supported equality from the view of age, citizenship, social categories (see Actions 7 and 8). We have revised our classification system V1-V6 and normalized it on EU categorization of research positions R1-R4 (see Action 6).
      In spite of responsible approach to HRS4R, some aspects or parts of Actions were not completely finished. For example, we have introduced regulation on mobility for students, however, the number of those drawing money is not large enough (some improvements are needed). We have several systems of evaluation, however, we have to check their compatibility to ARRA (Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment). We started with gender issues, however, continuation is needed. We improved professional level of our scientists, however, some aspects were not sufficiently accented (e.g. Open Science). Some other less important questions are mentioned in the evaluation of individual action.

How have you prepared the internal review? *

The Internal Review (IR) has been prepared in collaboration of Working Group, Steering Committee and Director of the Institute. We carefully discussed all Actions, their fulfillment, possible continuations or extensions. In addition, we introduced new actions with the aim to bring our activities closer to the aims of EU introduced into new Charter. The fulfillment of individual Actions has been described in Reports summarizing all sub-Actions in the Internal Review, the sub-Actions are again described with a lot of details including some documents enclosed and pictures. The other related documents (that are not public and not enclosed to IR as pdf file) are stored by responsible person (Jana Poláková).
      Before writing IR, we have performed and ongoing questionnaire (enclosed), where the response of our community to the HR Award activities has been investigated. The questionnaire survey has been prepared by Working Group and all employees of the Institute has been invited to participate in the survey. The survey was anonymous and prepared in both Czech and English versions.
       The survey consisted of 53 questions related mainly to the running Action Plan. The total number of respondents with identified position was 89. In 53% of cases the respondens were women, 36% men and in 12% gender was not specified. 54% of employees who completed the survey work at our Institute for 10 years or longer, 39% work 2-10 years and only 7% work up to 2 years. There was no strong correlation with gender, however, there was correlation with positions. All R4 employees work at the Institue for over 10 years. Let us have a look at the answers of the questionnaire. The question „Do you know that IBP is a holder of the HR Award/HR Excellence? „ answered 88% respondents „Yes“. Gener does not influece the conclusion that the activities of HR Award are beneficial or motivating for our employees. Important aspect is recruitment and selection procedures. The answer to the question: „Are the selection procedures for positions at the IBP transparent?“ was mostly positive, however, many respondents answered „I do not know“. It means that many employees are not acquainted with the selection procedure; those who can decide preferably select „Yes“ only with minor exceptions (only in 2 cases „No“).
     The questionnaire provided for us very important platform both for IR and for new Action Plan (AP). We can be sure that the HR activites are useful for our employees and further continuation will be meaninful.

How have you involved the research community, your main stakeholders, in the implementation process?

The research community actively participated in the implementation process. Most activities were designed to support particular aspects of scientific professional life, working conditions, career aspects, training and development. Also recruitment detailed methodology has been supported and fully applied by group and department leaders in vast majority of cases. Participation of the community in individual Actions can be seen in indicators for each sub-action. The total satisfaction with the HR implementation process can be seen from the answer to the question: Are the HR activities (courses, seminars, awards) beneficial or motivating for you? „ With the exception of non-research respondents and students in all research cathegories the activities related to HR Award were found to be hihgly beneficial or motivating. The question „Do you perceive the environment of the institute positively, such as the garden, common room, lecture rooms?“ has been answered „Yes“ in ALL CASES. Similar questions such as „Do you rate other employee benefits, such as the annual distribution of vitamins, positively?  or „Do you perceive  contributions to recreation and lunches from the social fund as a significant employee benefit?“ have been answered „Yes“ in the vast majority of cases. Also sports and other leisure activities organized at the work place are seen positively. Majority of respondents also consider social policy of the Institute adequate. The working place is considered „safe“ practically for all employees. The vast majority of workers would recomment a job at the Institute to his friends.
      From the above mentioned statements of our employees we can judge that the research community was not only involved in the implementation process but also contributed to its successful course and feel good from HR implementation after the initial 2 years. All important questions related to the implementation have been considered in Working Group (24 members from about 180 employees) which has tight relations with individual departments and represent different interests of employees.

Do you have an implementation committee and/or steering group regularly overseeing progress?

    Yes, there is both the Working Group (WG) and Steering Committee (SC) regularly overseeing the process in the Institute. During the implementation of the HR Award, the WG organized regular meetings related to the fulfillment of the AP (quarterly) and SC supervised the progress and made the most important decisions together with the Director of the Institute. WG represents all departments (10 departments in the Institute), all categories of employees (R1-R4) as well as non-scientific employees. Thus members of the WG are able to arrange tasks related to HRAW in their departments as well as inside different categories of employees.  In the SC there are representatives of the management of the Institute, including the Director, Prof. Eva Bártová, which covers responsibility and possibilites to decide problems mainly related to financial support of HR actions. WG organizes or participates in individual activities approved by SC and the Director of the Institute. SC provides new regulations required in some Actions as well as solution of organizational or financial problems.Thanks to strong support from the management and the Director of the Institute, the Actions of HR have been fulfilled with very good quality and it was appreciated by our employees.

Is there any alignment of organisational policies with the HRS4R? For example, is the HRS4R recognized in the organisation’s research strategy, overarching HR policy

EC recommended us to make visible the link between HR strategy and institutional strategy. The corresponding document is enclosed (HRS4R and Strategy of the Institute). In a frame of HRS4R we are going to support the mobility of scientists and students. We will strengthen and more specify the rules for the recruitment policy OTM-R of the research scientists, department leaders and other positions. An Open-call for a new position will be advertised in scientific journals, institutional web pages, and EURAXES portal. We established a new IBP-internal program focused on the support of the international mobility of students from the Universities that realize their Ph.D. study at the Institute, and abroad. In a frame of HR Award, we will strengthen the evaluation of scientific results and other contributions. During the on-site visit, the International Advisory Board (ISAB) will evaluate all teams according to the level of their scientific papers, presentation of the results, and visit of their laboratories. ISAB will provide an independent evaluation, the nomination of the best Ph.D. students for the ISAB award and recommendation of the best outputs for national evaluation. We will also award students with the best diploma thesis and we will establish the award called the best paper of the year, innovation award, application award. If employees would like to increase their salaries, we will also establish the “improvement status,” as a part of institutional attestations. In this regard, employees can introduce their results to the commission and can discuss how to improve their income. We will also encourage women and parents in science. Scientists returning after parental leave have a long-term problem with the placement of their children in pre-school facilities, especially in nurseries (for children aged from 1 to 3 years). The management of the institute aims to maintain a newly built children's corner (nursery), which will be rented by a company taking care of preschool children. Therefore, the care for pre-school children will be on a high level and will be considered as an essential prerequisite for the recruitment of the highest quality researchers. We will organize Summer School for kids of employees as well as Summer School of biophysical methods for students and post-docs. We will organize courses in management, biostatistics, and language courses, retorque course (see enclosed Table). Our scientific and social activities will be presented to the broader audience via our PR manager and his team. In the case of evaluation/appraisal, the expected implementation process will represent relatively small improvements (the already existing evaluation procedures are quite strong and robust). These improvements could be implemented relatively easily in 2020-2023 years. ASEP indicators can be used to create annual reports at the level of teams starting from the next year. Career progression and evaluation are tightly related and can be connected by considering these aspects by the evaluation bodies (commissions, ISAB members). The job description will be improved in relation to the more transparent evaluation

How has your organisation ensured that the proposed actions would be also implemented?

The management of our Institute appointed a number of specific positions improving both HRS4R implementation and research policy. The Working Group has been specifically established for HRS4R and involves 24 members which represents a large percentage of our employees (15%) from all departments and categories. Therefore, sub-committees can be formed to solve specific problems (e.g. for some courses or lectures, PR activities, children corner, Summer school, etc). In addition, specific committees with high competence are formed to select candidates for recruitment, the advertisements are elaborated in detail and distant or present consultations are performed with the best ones. All employees but particularly members of the WG, SC and management of the Institute including the Director, Eva Bártová are highly motivated to fulfile the tasks of our Action Plan with an effort to get the best profit for our employees. The participation of our employees in the fulfillment of HRS4R has been already shown in the previous sections, the WG, SC and Director of the Institute ensured careful implementation of all Actions even in the case of substantial costs. Owing to worsening of the financial situation in the research and specifically in the Academy of Sciences, there are substantial restrictions (e.g. scientific facilities could not be provided by the central academic financial resources in the last year). Therefore, the costs and benefits of the HRS4R Actions have to be always weighted and the best possibilities are selected. In spite of this situation, we fulfile the AP carefully and provide detailed description of all sub-Actions realized for each activity.  We fulfilled some most important Actions comletely (e.g. A2 on recruitment), the other are substantially filfilled with some minor shortages that will be accomplished during the next years.

How are you monitoring progress (timeline)?

The progress of the AP is monitored by both the WG and mainly the SC that review the accomplished achievements against the AP. Practically each month we have had several activities (can be seen at our web pages) and the number of sub-Actions (individual activities) is in average 6 per month with the total number of about 150 sub-Actions per 2 years. Some of them represent more activities (e.g. PR reports on Facebook or Twitter are shown as 1 sub-Action but involve 75 contributions in 2022 and 66 up to August 2023). The timeline is described in each Action and practically in all cases we fulfilled the time schedule. In some cases, the number of participants at lectures or the number of students involved in mobility plan is lower as anticipated, which will be the subject of discussions and improvements in the future period (2024-2026).

How will you measure progress (indicators) in view of the next assessment?

We expect the next assessment (External Review) in 2026 as an on-site visit.  The progress of the Revised Action Plan (RAP) implementation will be evaluated. Therefore, we will focus to reviewing targets/indicators of the RAP in a similar way as we did for the previous period: in regular periods the progress of each Action will be discussed by the WG, the required decisions on the support will be provided by the SC and Director of the Institute. We will apply to the Ministry of Education for the OP JAK project focused to the support of HRS4R activities. The call will be announced in the beginning of 2024. Such contribution will enable substantial extension of our activities as well as extension of the HRS4R team.

How do you expect to prepare for the external review?

We have already set up the functioning HRS4R structure. Working Groups with its leader (Stanislav Kozubek), Steering Committee with the chairmen (Director of the Institute, Eva Bártová) and employees that are aware of the existing HRS4R activity and helping with its realization.

1) We will monitor the HRS4R Revised Action Plan implementation (fulfillment of its goals, indicators/targets) on the level of the WG, SC and Director of the Institute according to the timeline given for each Action.

2) Our WG and SC will meet regularly (WG quarterly, SC bianually) and discuss the latest period and plan the next activities.

3) Each year, information will be provided for all employees about the process its achievements and shortages.

4) Questionnaire will be elaborated in the meantime (2023-2024) to get information in the form of Employee Survey on HRS4R.

5) Best practices get in the frame of networking with other institutions implementing HRS4R will discussed and, if possible, implemented.

6) Workshops and info days organized by Europeak Commission will be attended and utilized.

 

Additional remarks/comments about the proposed implementation process: (max. 1000 words)

We have improved the Action Plan according to the recommendations given in the EC Consesnsus Report (mainly timing is set more precisely, measurable indicators are included in order to have SMART actions and priorities for institutional strategy as well as for HRS4R strategy are given). The improved Action Plan is here.

EC recommended us to make visible the link between HR strategy and institutional strategy. The corresponding document can be seen here.