CEDARS is the Culture, Employment and Development of Academic Researchers Survey. Its questions are mapped against the revised Researcher Development Concordat (2019) and replaces the Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS) and Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey (PIRLS).
CEDARS ran for the first-time last year (2020), which coincided with the start of COVID-19 restrictions from 16 March – this affected the number of responses for this survey at Bath (~9% response rate). This low response rate meant that the data could not be considered reflective of all researchers at University of Bath; however, it did provide a snapshot of the views and experiences of some researchers at Bath.
We listened to those views and used them to direct our policies towards certain changes in how we support researchers at the University. More on these initiatives.
This year, CEDARS will run from 30 April to 31 May 2021.
Complete the Culture, Employment and Development of Academic Researchers Survey by 31 May.
This survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
The survey will provide valuable information on how we can create a healthy and supportive research culture to ensure our researchers can thrive.
Who should complete CEDARS?
research staff (above doctoral level, i.e., not students), who are not in fully independent or management positions - includes postdoctoral researchers, research assistants/technicians, and some research fellows
other academic staff, who are established researchers with a management position at the university - includes assistant professors, lecturers and senior lecturers, senior research fellows, readers, and full professors
As well as important topics, such as researchers' experiences of their local research environment and working conditions, the associated responsibilities of managers of researchers will also be explored. The more people who respond to this survey, the better information we have about what is happening to all researchers across the whole university and the greater chance that your voice is heard.
The results of the survey will also establish a baseline for the UK research system generally in what more we need to do to achieve the Principles of the Concordat.
How we use your data
We will protect your anonymity in a number of ways:
You do not provide any personal information (i.e. your name or email address)
Any questions regarding protected characteristics are not mandatory or specifically linked to your other survey responses.
The raw data from this survey can only be accessed by Dr Anne Cameron (Researcher Career Development Adviser) and Dr Amy Birch (Researcher Development Manager). These data will not be disseminated beyond these people and are stored on an encrypted database.
Any reports generated from these data will be analysed to ensure full anonymity. This means that if there are too few responses for specific protected characteristics, departments, or other groups within the university, these will not be analysed separately. In addition, no individual free-text responses will be reported.
CEDARS is managed and supported by Vitae. The aggregated data will be used by CRAC/Vitae to analyse UK-wide trends and provide benchmarking for each university’s analysis.