New to Career Development?
Do you represent an organisation looking to establish, supplement or enhance the support you provide your researchers in career development? EURAXESS offers its members free, easy-to-use resources and tools for high-standard career development services within organisations.
- Resources for research supporting organisations
- Resources and tools for existing EURAXESS career development services
- Set up EURAXESS career development services
Setting up career development services in your organisation is easy with the EURAXESS career development model!
Tools
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This set of easy-to-use resources is designed to support EURAXESS Service Centres (ESCs) and Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) in enhancing their outreach to and engagement with business employers.
The Employer Engagement Toolkit includes:
- Practical advice and tools for industry engagement
- Examples of effective academia-business partnerships
- Labour market insights (shared with the Career Development Module)
- Information on high-level skills across employment sectors (also shared with the Career Development Module)
- Guidance on promoting EURAXESS services to business employers
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The REFLEX App is an online tool developed to help research institutions and professionals assisting researchers to take a more comprehensive and sustainable approach to the career development of researchers. The tool provides examples of activities that can be carried out to support the professional development of researchers in five key areas: mobility, networking, academic skills development, company and organisational interaction and career development as such.
The tool will help you to:
- Explore which career support services are already available at your institution.
- Build a tailor-made institutional career development strategy.
- Increase the visibility of career support services to your researchers.
Learn more about the tool and how you can use it on the REFLEX project website.
Gender Equality Plans
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What is a Gender Equality Plan?
The European Institute for Gender Equality offers a clear definition of what a gender equality plan is for research organisation and higher education institutions according to the European Commission. It outlines the different steps or phases of a gender equality plan, namely the analysis, planning, implementing, and monitoring phase.
Gender equality in research and innovation is an essential factor that must be prioritised throughout all stages of research, talent management, and policy decisions.
Moreover, from 2022 and onwards, having a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) is an eligibility criterion for all public bodies, higher education institutions and research organisations from EU Member States and associated countries wishing to participate in Horizon Europe.
Find here all the information you need about developing a GEP in your organisation.
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How to setup and implement a gender equality plan?
The following documents present guidance on how to set up and implement a gender equality plan for research organisations to be eligible for applying to Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation 2021-2027 projects.
This Guidance supports organisations to meet the Gender Equality Plan (GEP) eligibility criterion of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation 2021-2027. This Guidance presents the components of the eligibility criterion as set by the European Commission, explains what these requirements mean in practice when developing and implementing a GEP or reviewing the equivalence of existing plans or policies, and provides concrete practical examples, building on existing materials, good practices and various resources that support gender equality in research and innovation (R&I) at national and institutional levels.
The European Institute for Gender Equality also offers a complete step-by-step guide.
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Horizon Europe & Gender - Background documents
Learn from the European Commission's factsheets and strategies, about the current challenges related to gender equality and specific actions to reach it. Read about the policy objectives and actions to make significant progress by 2025.
This factsheet provides information on the challenges of gender quality and how to tackle them as well as key tips for developing a GEP.
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Best practices
This is an overview of best practices of projects that range from the assessment of current policies to identifying and tackling gender biases and obstacles towards measures on how to reach gender equality. Also included are projects that deliver strategies to research organisation to development and implement as well as assess gender equality plans.
University of Beira Interior (UBI) was the first university in Portugal to set up a gender equality plan as early as 2011. Since 2012, Gender Equality Reports have been prepared on an annual basis to monitor the progress towards gender equality in the university. The analysis provided in the reports considers the gender balance in terms of disciplines taught and on decision-making and leadership positions, the gender pay gap, the use of measures to reconcile professional and personal life (like flexible working hours), a gender analysis of the utilisation of leaves, and information about the number of students disaggregated by sex and faculty.
GEARING ROLES supports research institutions in implementing Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) and transforming institutional culture through gender-sensitive interventions.
CALIPER promotes structural change in STEM research organisations through co-creation and implementation of tailored Gender Equality Plans.
LeTSGEPs aims to foster gender equality in research organisations by integrating gender budgeting and sustainable GEPs.
EQUAL4EUROPE works to develop and implement GEPs in research institutions in the social sciences and humanities to remove barriers to women's careers.
Case Studies
Explore how different research institutions have implemented successful strategies to support the career development of their researchers. These examples highlight diverse approaches and practical insights that can inform and inspire similar efforts.
The Helmholtz Association brings together 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centres and has a talent management strategy supporting scientific and administrative staff that begins through targeted recruitment and continues with a comprehensive support ultimately aimed at further developing their potential.
This way, the Helmholtz Association career development actions target all research stages from R1 to R4, but also non-academic staff on different career levels. These actions include the Helmholtz Leadership Academy, the Helmholtz mentoring programme for young women of the association, the Helmholtz Graduate Schools, or the Helmholtz Research Schools among other activities.
All of these activities are embedded in the abovementioned talent management strategy, and although each of the 18 member centres has its management competencies, all share the same tools and programmes, and exchange information at periodic meetings.
The assessment of the different activities is regularly done by so-called happy sheets, and several researcher tracking surveys have been done (young investigators group leaders in 2011 and 2014), and others are planned for the near future (PhD candidates tracking).
Throughout the entire University of Copenhagen (KU), which includes over 6 faculties and more than 5000 esearchers employed, there are a wide range of researcher career development activities organised.
These include workshops and events; which foster networking with private companies and foreign researchers, cover professional capacities, employability, or language courses; as well as mentoring and management activities covering both the social and professional level of the research staff.
All in all, the main research stages that these activities cover are R1, R2 and R3. Particularly, in the case of the R1, all their activities are embedded in a common strategic action plan covering all PhD candidates of the university. Currently, a cross-faculty group is working on trying to agree on a common researcher career development plan for the rest of the stages (R2-R4).
For assessing the impact of the activities, surveys to the participants of the different activities are used, together with focus groups. On top of that KU also uses the data from the Danish National registry to analyse the impact of their research career development services. Specifically, the University of Copenhagen has been looking into the labour market of young researchers through several tracking studies of its PhD and postdoctoral researchers. These studies produce both quantitative and qualitative data related to their working sector, positions, income, gender, etc., which are very useful for the design on researcher career development initiatives.
The non-profit programme Vitae, is the global leader in supporting the professional development of researchers, understanding these as anyone training or trained in research, whether they continue in academia or use their professional skills in a career outside the academia.
Vitae organises events, co-develops training materials and offers a wide range of online material for researcher development covering all career stages (R1 to R4). It also supports its members in producing their HRS4R logo action plan and is the EURAXESS Career Development Centre for the UK through it is collaboration with Bridgehead Organisation British Council.
Among the online material of Vitae, we find their Researcher Development Framework (RDF) that describes the knowledge, behaviour and attributes of successful researchers. This is a resource widely used by research performing organisations to audit and organise their professional development support to the research staff, as well as an assessment tool for individual needs and progress.
Within the UK, Vitae measures the impact of its career development activities using the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers on behalf the Concordat Strategy Group. In the UK, the Concordat provides an unambiguous statement of the expectations and responsibilities of researchers and their managers, employers and funders, which gives a framework to detail progress on measures related to recruitment and selection, recognition and value, or career development, among other. Most of this evidence is gathered from regular surveys to researchers in the UK:
- Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) to postgraduate research students run by the Higher Education Academy
- Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS) run by Vitae to early career research staff
- Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey (PIRLS) also run by Vitae to research leaders and principal investigators
Measuring impact
Monitoring the impact of researcher development activities is essential for aligning with the principles of the new Charter for Researchers and for assessing the effectiveness of European and national policies.
For research performing organisations (RPOs), impact data helps shape targeted strategies, secure funding, inform policymakers, and strengthen institutional branding and training programmes.
Researchers also play a key role: by engaging in evaluations and using impact analysis in their self-assessments, they contribute to policy development and track their own professional growth.
Learn more about measuring impact
Two well-established models can help structure impact assessment efforts:
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The Kirkpatrick Model is a widely used framework for evaluating the effectiveness of training programmes. Developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in the 1950s, it organises impact measurement into four sequential levels:
- Level 1 – Reaction: Assesses participants’ immediate responses to the training — their satisfaction, engagement, and perceived relevance.
- Level 2 – Learning: Measures what participants have learned, including gains in knowledge, skills, and attitudes, typically through pre- and post-training assessments.
- Level 3 – Behaviour: Evaluates how participants apply their learning in the workplace, identifying changes in actions, performance, or knowledge sharing.
- Level 4 – Results: Looks at broader organisational outcomes such as improved productivity, cost savings, employee retention, or other measurable impacts.
This model helps organisations ensure that training initiatives not only deliver content effectively but also lead to meaningful and measurable change.
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The TOTADO framework (Training Outcomes for Training and Development Organisations) outlines four levels at which the impact of training and development should be assessed, each defined by its unit of analysis:
- Individual outcomes: Focus on changes in a trainee’s attitudes, knowledge, behaviours, health, and career progression.
- Team outcomes: Measure how training affects team dynamics, shared knowledge, performance, and collective achievements.
- Organisational outcomes: Evaluate broader institutional impacts such as financial performance, productivity, processes, and resource use.
- Societal outcomes: Assess the wider effects beyond the organisation, including economic growth, public health, education, law and order, and environmental indicators.
Glossary of Terms
Confused by some of the terminology? Take a look at our Glossary of Terms
My EURAXESS
Looking to attract top talent and boost your visibility in the global research community? With My EURAXESS, your organisation can post vacancies, advertise funding and hosting offers, and connect with thousands of qualified researchers worldwide.
Why register?
- It’s free, easy to use, and designed for universities, research institutions and innovation-driven companies.
- Create and manage your organisation profile
- Post job, funding and hosting offers in just a few clicks
- Find and connect with the best international research talent
- Promote your opportunities across Europe and beyond
Keeping your profile up to date ensures maximum reach and attracts the right candidates at the right time.