Culture, Employment and Development in Academic Research Survey (CEDARS)
The survey will run at the University of Wolverhampton in 2025.
What is CEDARS?
CEDARS gathers anonymous data about working conditions, research culture, career aspirations and career development opportunities for research staff and research leaders in higher education institutions across the UK. CEDARS is managed by Vitae, an international programme dedicated to supporting the professional and career development of researchers run by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) Limited.
Who should complete CEDARS?
The primary audiences for CEDARS are research staff and managers of researchers. This includes research-only staff, staff with significant responsibility for research, Deans, ADs Research and Heads of School, who will be invited to share their experiences of being researchers at UoW.
Why should you spend time completing the survey?
We’re keen to make sure that Researchers have the best possible experience while working at the University of Wolverhampton. If you feel that the University should be doing more, or you like something we are doing and want to make sure it stays, this survey is the best way to tell us. CEDARS results will show how well the University is supporting and developing research-active and early career researchers. By completing it, you are highlighting what issues should be prioritised. The responses will inform the activities and actions that are developed across the university, both centrally and within faculties.
What questions are included in the survey?
CEDARS includes questions relating to the three Principles of the Researcher Development Concordat and covers the research culture, working conditions and professional development.
How will the data from the survey be used?
CEDARS is based on a standard question set to allow for benchmarking with other institutions and longitudinal comparison. It also provides valuable data for measuring progress in implementation of the University’s Action Plan for the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers. The survey contributes to achieving and maintaining the University’s HR Excellence in Research award. Additionally, it can be included in host organisation statements written for all major national and European funding bodies to demonstrate our commitment to ensuring a positive research culture and the career development of researchers.
How will CEDARS be carried out?
The national survey is carried out by the Research & Enterprise Directorate and the questionnaire hosted on the JISC Online surveys platform.
On the launch date, all eligible staff will receive a launch email from Jill Morgan, Senior Officer Governance & Integrity that will contain the link to the survey.
This will be followed up by reminders throughout the survey period. Please note that due to data protection, and measures to ensure confidentiality & anonymity (see details) it is not possible to identify which staff have, or haven't completed the survey, so reminders will not be targeted.
How long does it take to complete the survey?
The survey is very simple to answer and will take about 20 minutes of your time.
Data protection and Freedom of Information (FoI)
Data and results from individual institutions, as well as overall data and results, will be stored securely by JISC. Under Data Protection Act 1998 JISC will meet Data Processor requirements. The University of Wolverhampton will be the Data Controller and data storage is in compliance with The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
How do we ensure anonymity and confidentiality?
The rights of the respondent for anonymity and confidentiality are critically important and therefore no names or individual identifiers will be collected. The individual responses are confidential to the Research & Enterprise Directorate and only aggregate data will be supplied to Faculties so no-one will be able to identify you from any results.
The survey asks that any comments you make should not identify yourself or any specific members of staff. The Survey Officer will screen qualitative comments prior to any dissemination or publication of the results to ensure they reveal neither the identity of respondents nor that of others, even by implication.
Data and results from individual institutions
No body, other than the University, JISC or the research and development function of CRAC, will have access to the University of Wolverhampton’s data or results, or is permitted to identify or publish those data or results, without our prior consent. Data from individual institutions will not be released by CRAC, Vitae, the Steering Group or its agents to any third party.
When will the data will be available?
The UK aggregate data for benchmarking will be available after all the surveys are closed and Online Surveys has pulled all the institutional datasets together. The analysis of the UK aggregate results is usually published in an annual report at the Vitae Researcher Development International Conference.
More information
For more information about CEDARS please contact Jill Morgan, Research & Enterprise Directorate by email: j.morgan4@wlv.ac.uk
Visit the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers webpage for more information about implementation at the University of Wolverhampton.