Collaborations Workshop 2019 (CW19) #CollabW19 2019-04-01 to 2019-04-03
collab_ideas_group_5 - CI10-CW2CC
Reporter
Sarah Gibson - sgibson@turing.ac.uk
Participants
Jason M. Gates, Joanna Leng, Catherine Smith, Sarah Gibson, Colin Sauze, Alexander Konovalov
Context / Research Domain
RSE Careers
Problem
HERA (Higher Education Role Analysis) is a tool which is used to analyse roles found in Higher Education institutions (see http://www.ecc.ac.uk/about-us/ for further information). They were written about 15 years ago. While there were subsequent changes to REF procedures, and RSEs did not exist at the point they were written, the descriptions stay the same. As a result, it is not obvious for HR departments how to classify an RSE job. This hinders career paths of RSEs.
Solution
We propose to look through the national job descriptions provided by HERA and suggest updates to include RSE, data scientists and similar roles. Having appropriate job roles is important for recognition and promotion.
The word “software” doesn’t appear in many university’s technical HERA job descriptions.
We need to raise the issue with trade unions (UCU) as they are responsible for negotiating this with the universities as recognised in the Researchers’ Concordat. The Researchers’ Concordat currently covers academic researchers but is in the process of consultation to start including the gray areas around research.
For examples of HERA job descriptions see https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/hr/gradingrewardandconditions/jobfamiliesgenericroledescriptors/ (St Andrews) and https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/media/departmental/humanresources/frameworkagreement/technicalcomputeroperatorprofilestco/Technical-&-Computer-Operator-8—EN.pdf (Aberystwyth)