Career Development Reviews and Ongoing Support

A research post at Oxford is a strong career springboard.

This page outlines how to build in timely reflection, learning and planning* for your next career steps; with support from experienced colleagues.

Researchers, your two key routes are

1. Annual Career Development Reviews (CDRs or equivalent) and follow-up conversations
   • See guidance for reviewees below
2. Bespoke careers support for researchers provided by the Careers Service
   • You can book appointments, workshops etc with a CareerConnect login

PIs/academic reviewers; please see guidance below on hosting an effective CDR

Professional support colleagues in departments/faculties; please see guidance below on facilitating CDRs or equivalent.

What is a Career Development Review, and why engage?

Your CDR is a structured, confidential conversation, led by you as researcher/reviewee about your career development options, in any sector or in any role. It focuses on identifying career goals and routes to achieve these, including relevant professional development.

Career Development Reviews (CDRs) are made available to researchers at least annually and may be incorporated into Personal Development Reviews (PDRs or PCDRs) or referred to as Career Conversations, depending on department/faculty.

As a researcher, you are responsible for leading your CDR and may request a review with someone other than your current PI or line manager. For more details, please see ‘How to start a CDR and who is responsible for what?’ below.

Why do CDRs matter?

Setting aside time to reflect, discuss and plan is key to a pro-active approach to career development; one that is especially important when the majority of research funding flows through fixed-term projects and in which career options for researchers include roles in a wide range of business, public or voluntary sector organisations as well as academia.

An effective CDR will help you identify the skills or experience needed to progress in one or more given career routes and where to find the relevant professional development opportunities while working at Oxford.

Who is eligible for CDRs or equivalents?

As per Oxford’s Concordat Action Plan commitments, CDRs are available at a minimum to staff employed by the University:

• whose primary responsibility is to conduct research and who are employed specifically for this purpose, or who are expected in their contracts to conduct research and
• who are employed on fixed-term contracts or open-ended externally-funded contracts, and
• who are employed on grade 6–9 (inclusive) posts and typically in the early stages of their research careers.

It is recommended that CDRs are made available to all researchers within their first year of contract, including during probation (separately and in parallel with the probation review that focuses on performance and fit within the new role). This is especially important for researchers with contracts of two years or less.

The national Concordat for the Career Development of Researchers also recognises that there are “other groups of individuals who actively engage in research within institutions and who would be expected to develop their research identity as part of their career progression” and departments may wish to extend the offer of CDRs to these researchers.

How to start a CDR and who is responsible for what?

Researchers; please ask your department/faculty HR colleague how to initiate your CDR, which may be via HR Self-Service or a local system. 

Each department/faculty is responsible for enabling CDRs based on the following principles:

• People Committee agreed career development principles on Promoting Good Conversations at Work (2019).
• In 2021, the former VC Louise Richardson signed the 2019 national Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers on behalf of the University, and commitments to enabling effective CDRs for all researchers are prioritised in Oxford’s related action plan 2025-30 and Charter.

• While the CDR will typically take place with your academic manager/PI, there are good reasons why you may prefer – and stand to benefit from – an alternative reviewer; for example where this senior colleague has experience in a wider range of roles, sectors or areas of research. Departments/faculties are encouraged to facilitate this option where possible, e.g. by working with proximal departments/faculties to widen the pool of reviewers.

• Researchers who would welcome a second career conversation with a specialist in career transitions, specific sectors or making strong applications can book an appointment with a Careers Adviser.

Guidance for Researchers (reviewees)

Spending a few minutes preparing for your CDR will help ensure a useful conversation that generates clear actions. You may wish to reflect on any previous annual review or career conversations with experienced colleagues.

We suggest considering the following questions at a minimum; they are provided in the ‘My Development’ module on HR Self Service, and mirrored in CDR/PCDR or Career Conversation formats used in other parts of the university.

Once your department/faculty has adopted ‘My Development’, you can draft responses to these questions within HR Self Service and share these with your reviewer via the system, either ahead of your CDR meeting or during it.

Current position

• What is working well for you in your current role?
• What do you find challenging in your current role?

Career Goals

• Many researchers explore careers in academia and in other sectors to keep their options open. What areas or roles interest you? How could you explore these further?

Professional Development

• In which areas do you wish to develop your knowledge, skills or experience in the coming year? [See box below for examples]
• What support would help you achieve your planned activities?
• Who else would you benefit from speaking to in order to broaden your career options, and/or strengthen your professional networks?
• How could current or future mentor(s) help you progress your career?

We encourage you to think strategically about the range of opportunities ahead, and how these align with your preferences, values, life-situation, experience and achievements to date.

It is particularly important at mid-career stage to take a good look at what is working well for you in your academic role, and what is not working so well. Identifying opportunities to progress or the need to pivot can be helpful outcomes from a CDR conversation; your reviewer, other colleagues in your department and/or specialist Careers Advisers are there to support you, even when timelines are short.

Researchers are eligible to 1:1 support, workshops and all other provision from the Careers Service for one year after the end of their contract.

Researchers in departments that have adopted My Development can use this module in HR Self Service to record their professional development plans under the following categories, and discuss them with their reviewer.

Researchers whose departments incorporate career planning into their Personal Development Review (PDR) or run an integrated review (PCDR), may also wish to consider the following questions ahead of their review. Researchers and academic managers/PIs can find these prompts in the PDR section of ‘My Development’, which is set up to enable researchers to draft responses ahead before meeting their reviewer and/or to guide the review conversation.

Looking back over the past year

• How have you performed in relation to your agreed objectives and/or responsibilities as detailed in your job description?
• Further Contributions: Over the past year, how else have your contributed to your research project/group/colleagues, or to the work of the University?

Looking forward:

• Objectives: Propose 3-5 objectives and state how you plan to achieve them
• What professional development, training or support do you need to meet your objectives and where will you find these? (these may overlap with professional development sought for career development, as identified in the CDR questions above)

Guidance for Academic Managers/PIs (reviewers)

Effective Career Development Reviews are those led by the researcher reviewee, with encouraging, supportive, and reflective input from their reviewer.

Here are some guidelines in that vein:

• Read anything your reviewee provides in advance of the meeting
• Listen carefully to what they wish to get out of the conversation
• Ask open questions to help your reviewee expand their thinking and explore options
  • How do you feel about working in research, whether in universities or other institutions?
  • What other roles or sectors have you encountered that attract your interest? *
  • How could I, or other colleagues, support you in exploring further so that you have at least two viable career options? *
• Support your reviewee in making an achievable plan to progress their career, including investing time in professional development as per Oxford’s Charter
• Signpost to further support e.g. your colleagues within or beyond the university and tailored careers guidance for researchers from the Careers Service (there is no expectation that you will be able to provide guidance in areas of work unfamiliar to you), and encourage your reviewee to identify how to find the information they need
• Assure your reviewee that the CDR discussion will be kept confidential and that you are approachable for future conversations, should your reviewee initiate these.

* Your role here is to invite the researcher to articulate a range of ideas and to support them in thinking strategically; for example by asking reflective questions about how their career options align with what they enjoy, what they are good at, their values, life-situation, experience, interests or achievements to date. This non-directive coaching approach helps build the reviewee’s confidence and clarity about next steps. Discussions with your and/or others about how to fill any gaps in skill or experience can then follow.

For reviewees at mid-career stage, a more focused approach to assessing what is working well, and less well, in the current environment may be particularly useful. They may wish to discuss options for pivoting their career within the short time-frames of a fixed-term contract and how this can be supported within the department and wider University.

Note: Researchers are eligible to 1:1 support, workshops and all other provision from the Careers Service for one year after the end of their contract.

If you would like to understand and practice a coaching approach to annual reviews and/or routine conversations with your team amongst other essential academic management skills, please enroll on Leading and Managing People in Research within The Confident Manager Series | People and Organisational Development.

If you would like to further extend your competence in using a coaching approach, please enroll on the Coaching Skills course within The Confident Manager Series | People and Organisational Development. 

Guidance for Professional Support staff in Departments/Faculties

To support departments/faculties in implementing CDRs (or integrated PCDRs) and tracking their uptake, a new facility is available in HR Self Service called ‘My Development’. Here researchers and their reviewers can plan and record CDRs and professional development time, using the questions prompts within the system, including for PDRs where departments run integrated PCDRs (see Guidance for Reviewers for the question prompts). The project team is working with departments/faculties to support adoption during AY 2024-25 and into Michaelmas term 2025. For more information, please email: [email protected].

All departments using an existing system are welcome to adopt ‘My Development’ in HR Self Service when they are ready. All ‘My Development’ users can run reports to track engagement and experience to support local culture-strengthening and enable easy reporting.

In the mean-time and in order to fulfil annual reporting requirements for the Concordat Action Plan, data derived from their existing system will be requested at the end of each Michaelmas term, as follows

• Number of researchers (as defined in the Concordat Action Plan) in your department during the previous AY
• Number of researchers offered a CDR during the previous AY
• Number of researchers who had a CDR during the previous AY
• During the previous AY, number of researchers who took the following number of professional development days
• 0 days, 1-3 days, 4-7 days, 8-10 days, more than 10 days?
• What were the most popular foci for professional development days taken by researchers? (using the categories below, if helpful)
• Do you have any concerns about access to CDRs or professional development related to protected characteristics?

If possible, please provide this information split by male/female.

Please note: Owing to limited capacity in the central HR Systems team, support for departments in adopting the new ‘My Development’ module in HR Self-Service applies to research staff (as defined above) only. Should this be a barrier to departments wishing to adopt the module, please contact: [email protected]