Some 900 institutions in 25 countries have signed onto the Charter & Code, which provides a means to achieve a transparent and open labour market for researchers across Europe. The documents, which are addressed to employers, funders and researchers, are a key element of the EU’s policy to make research a more attractive career by ensuring the same rights and obligations to researchers regardless of where they are employed.

The HR Strategy is a mechanism to support research institutions' implementation of the Charter & Code. It is also a strong step forward in implementing the recently agreed "European Partnership for Researchers", which provides a comprehensive policy agenda for EU countries to pursue by 2010.

As a follow-up mechanism of the Charter & Code, the HR Strategy addresses research institutions by helping them to clarify the purpose of the Charter & Code and to more effectively and concretely implement it into their human resources strategies.

The HR Strategy is a voluntary support tool, based on self-assessment, giving full autonomy to the institutions. In a nutshell, this mechanism is based on the Commission’s recognition that the institution has identified and is implementing specific actions to put the Charter & Code principles in place. It is the institution that self-assesses the progress made, while after four years an external evaluation takes place.

Source: Euraxess Newsletter: http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index_en.cfm?l1=23&l2=0&l3=1&newsletter=17_05, as accessed on February 4, 2009.