Next month, all month, the University of Bristol will be running the CROS survey.
CROS is the Careers in Research Online Survey. It’s the (only) national online survey specifically aimed at capturing the experience of research staff in UK universities.
It’s national – in 2013 it was run by 68 universities, in 2015 by 72, and in 2017 by 67 universities. In 2017, over 7500 research staff filled it in.
It’s also local – At Bristol, in 2017, we got about 600 responses… that represents nearly 40% of our Research Staff community.
Having that many responses is hugely important, because it gives us a reliable picture of how we’re doing, and allows us to argue from evidence for more and better provision.
… and the local aspect matters, because in addition to a set of national questions, we can add questions of our own.
This year, we’ve been working with your Research Staff Reps to include questions that address the concerns of research staff at Bristol. So, in addition to the core question set, there will be sections on:
- Research staff well-being and work-life balance.
- Progression and Promotion.
- … and how useful and accessible the wider (particularly career development) support that the UoB provides actually is.
We’ll be working with your Reps to communicate CROS, and building up to the month with some more blog posts that describe how it works and how we’re going to communicate and use the findings.
In the meantime, is it enough to whet your appetite if I tell you that there’s also a prize for at least one lucky completer…
