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The British Academy Research Career Tracker (BARCT)
22/05/2025
The British Academy commissioned The Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) to conduct research and advise how to track the career pathways of its early-career researcher funding programmes Postdoctoral Fellowship (PDF) and British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA).
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Landscape review of employment contracts and salary provision for academic researchers in multiple countries
14/05/2025
Wellcome Trust has commissioned The Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC), in collaboration with Technopolis, to conduct a landscape review of the following countries: the UK, Republic of Ireland, USA, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam, Germany and Switzerland, on employment co...
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The British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship Scheme Evaluation
30/04/2025
The British Academy has commissioned The Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) to conduct research to evaluate its Mid-Career Fellowships (MCF) scheme.
The evaluation will draw on a survey and interviews with stakeholders to gather insights into the effectiveness of the scheme...
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Tracking the Careers of Royal Society Research Fellows
29/04/2025
The Royal Society commissioned CRAC/Vitae to deliver a second iteration of the Society ‘Career pathway tracker’ project that followed the progress of the alumni of three of the Royal Society’s early career research fellowship schemes: University Research Fellowships, Dorothy Hod...
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Research and innovation in Northern Ireland survey
28/11/2024
Complete the survey: Research and Innovation in Northern Ireland
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Embedding career learning into doctoral programmes
31/10/2024
CRAC was commissioned to provide a ‘thinkpiece’ for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), specifically focusing on how career-related learning could be enhanced and bet...
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Evaluation of the OfS Postgraduate Conversion Course funding (Phase 1)
14/02/2024
The Office for Students (OfS) commissioned the Careers Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC) to conduct an evaluation of its funding programme through which UK universities developed new Masters conversion courses in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and funded scholarships specifically ta...
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SHAPE research careers survey
10/01/2024
The British Academy has commissioned CRAC to conduct a large-scale survey to gather views and insights on questions related to researcher identity and mobility across the SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) research community.
The survey is part of ...
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Evaluation of the Postgraduate Conversion Course Scholarship Programme (Phase 2)
06/06/2023
The Office for Students (OfS) has appointed CRAC to evaluate the Postgraduate Conversion Course Scholarship Programme through which it funds scholarships for students from underrepresented groups to attend conversion courses in data science and AI. This follows prior CRAC evaluations of a pilot s...
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Intergenerational Fairness And The Challenges Facing Scientists At Different Career Stages
26/10/2022
As part of wider work to address barriers to participation and success in STEM, the Royal Society commissioned CRAC’s help to understand more about the challenges and opportunities that scientists face at different career stages. One aspect of the project is to explore ‘intergeneratio...
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Evaluation of Royal Society Research Professorship Scheme
02/02/2022
The Careers Research and Advisory Centre was commissioned to undertake an evaluation of the Research Professor scheme, the Royal Society’s premier research award which provides long term support to world-class researchers of outstanding achievement and promise. Previous award holders includ...
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Evaluation of the Engineering Leaders Scholarships scheme
18/03/2021
The Royal Academy of Engineering commissioned the Careers Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC), supported by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), to undertake an independent evaluation of its premier support programme for engineering students. Engineering Leaders Scholarships aim to accel...
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Qualitative research on barriers to progression for disabled scientists
28/10/2020
As part of work to address barriers to participation and success in STEM, the Royal Society commissioned the Careers Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC) to undertake a qualitative research project to understand the low level of disclosure of disability amongst scientists in the academic workfor...
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Establishing the diversity of researchers eligible for early career fellowships
28/10/2020
The Royal Society commissioned CRAC to analyse existing data about staff in UK HE institutions in order to develop a diversity profile of those eligible for its early career fellowship schemes, principally postdoctoral researchers. The report provides such profiles against which the Royal Society...
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Impact of Covid-19 on researchers and the UK research base
26/05/2020
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) commissioned CRAC/Vitae, supported by UKRI and Universities UK, to gather evidence to understand the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the activities of researchers and research groups. We ran an online survey to record a s...
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Evaluation of Royal Academy of Engineering research programmes
29/11/2019
The Royal Academy of Engineering commissioned CRAC, supported by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), to undertake an independent, external evaluation of its programmes of support for research, namely the following schemes: Research Fellowships, Senior Research Fellowships, Research Chairs,...
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Evaluation of the Sir Henry Dale Fellowships scheme
14/08/2019
The Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society have operated the Sir Henry Dale Fellowships scheme for over 7 years. It has the aim of supporting outstanding early career researchers in biomedical research to enable them to become independent research leaders. These funders commissioned CRAC, supported...
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Evaluation of the Newton International Fellowship scheme
03/04/2019
The Newton International Fellowship (NIF) scheme has been operating since 2008, jointly run by the Royal Society, British Academy (BA) and Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) with the aim of attracting the best early career post-doctoral researchers world-wide to conduct research in the UK. Ultimat...
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Tracking the careers of recipients of Royal Society Research Fellowships
12/06/2018
The Royal Society commissioned CRAC/Vitae to devise a scheme to track the career and scientific progression of researchers who have been awarded its University Research Fellowships and Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships, for the lifetime of these initiatives. CRAC implemented the first of these surveys ...
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Evaluation of engineering/computing conversion MSc courses
06/06/2018
CRAC is undertaking an evaluation for HEFCE of new pilot engineering- and computing-/data-focused Masters courses specifically designed for non-cognate graduates. The project involves formative evaluation of the institutional development projects and summative aspects through student surveys. A r...
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Employment outcomes of engineering graduates: key factors and diversity characteristics
11/06/2015
CRAC was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Engineering to undertake an in-depth investigation of the progression and transition into employment of recent engineering graduates over the past five years. The report Employment outcomes of engineering graduates: key factors and diversity character...
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Provision of Professional Doctorate programmes in English HE institutions
02/06/2015
CRAC and the University of Brighton recently undertook a review of the current landscape of professional doctorates in England for HEFCE, combining institutional strategic and practical views as well as insights from candidates and employer bodies. In recent years the number of institutions provi...
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Unemployment amongst recent Computing Science graduates (for CPHC, 2012)
12/06/2012
CRAC has recently completed work to help the Council of Professors & Heads of Computing (CPHC) understand the high unemployment rate for Computer Science graduates in HESA ‘Destinations' statistics. Detailed analysis identified factors contributing to the headline unemployment rate and ...
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STEM graduates in non-STEM jobs (for BIS, 2010-11)
08/06/2011
CRAC led a major BIS-funded study to explain why many STEM graduates do not enter careers related to their degree subject, as BIS believed many are ‘lost' from the pipeline to the STEM labour market at graduation. Our multi-faceted study, supported by NICEC and the CIHE, resulted in over 10...
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Understanding the recruitment and selection of postgraduate research students (HEFCE, 2014)
01/01/2001
CRAC and Vitae, supported by the International Centre for Guidance Studies at the University of Derby, undertake research for HEFCE to build a picture, from an HE institutional perspective, of how postgraduate research (PGR) students in England, are recruited and selected, and their role in the H...
