The European Commission has adopted a
European Charter for Researchers and a
Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of
Researchers (in short: Charter and Code).
These two documents, addressed to researchers
as well as to employers and funders in both the
public and private sectors, are key elements in the
European Union's policy to make research an
attractive career, which is a vital feature of its
strategy to stimulate economic and employment growth.

Giving individual researchers the same rights and obligations
wherever they may work throughout the European Union should
help counter the fact that research careers in Europe are fragmented
at local, regional, national or sectoral level, and allow Europe to make the most of its
scientific potential.

In particular, the European Charter for Researchers addresses the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers and their employers or funding organisations. It aims at ensuring that the relationship between these parties contributes to successful performance in the generation, transfer and sharing of knowledge, and to the career development of researchers.

The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers aims to improve recruitment, to make selection procedures fairer and more transparent and proposes different means of judging merit: Merit should not just be measured on the number of publications but on a wider range of evaluation criteria, such as teaching, supervision, teamwork, knowledge transfer, management and public awareness activities.

You may find the full text of both the Charter and the Code on the European EURAXESS Rights portal >>

List of organisations by country that have endorsed the Charter and Code >>

To facilitate the implementation of the Charter & Code, guidance is provided by the "Human Resources Strategy for Researchers incorporating the Charter & Code". This mechanism is put into action on a voluntary basis, and is as simple as possible, avoiding cumbersome procedures and respecting the variety of situations across institutions.

The "HR Excellence in Research" logo is awarded to research institutions and funding organisations that have been acknowledged by the European Commission for having made significant progress in implementing the Charter & Code.

You may find out more about the HR Strategy for Researchers on the European EURAXESS Rights portal >>

List of institutions with the "HR Excellence in Research" acknowledgment by coutry >>

For Croatian institutions that have endorsed the Charter and Code and wish to implement their principles using the "HR strategy for researchers", we offer additional support. You may find more information on the Croatian version of our portal >>