In 2005, the European Commission adopted a European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. To date, 1119 organisations have endorsed the Charter and Code (C&C) principles and a further 455 are “acknowledged institutions”, a list to which CERN’s name was added in December 2018. This date was also when CERN won the ‘HR Excellence in Research’ Award in the framework of the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HR4SR). The award followed several months of work to complete the extensive application process, involving multiple actors and stakeholders throughout the Organization. This began with a survey to evaluate to what extent CERN implements each of the 40 principles of the Charter and Code, further to which the CERN C&C Focus Group carried out a comprehensive gap analysis covering some key HR themes. Key points that CERN committed to follow up were collated in a clear action plan, submitted as part of the application, on the basis of which the Organization will be regularly audited and monitored to ensure compliance with the Code.
For James Purvis, head of CERN’s Human Resources department, this is an important step forward for the Organization:
We are extremely proud to have obtained this award. It is a key milestone – not only in the recognition of CERN’s HR practices, but it may also become critical in the future in CERN’s ability to succeed in future EC project submissions.
CERN is deeply committed to the principles and ethos of the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers, whose natural integration in CERN’s Human Resources and management processes are already contributing greatly towards promoting CERN as an attractive employer in Europe.
Find out more about the content of CERN’s application for the HR Excellence in Research award and what this means for the Organization at:
https://hr-dep.web.cern.ch/content/cern-and-eu-charter-and-code