Matters relating to the employment of research staff and their terms and conditions of service should be discussed with the HR Department. Great care should be taken in assessing the exact requirements for your project in terms of staff.
The role you believe you require must, in the first instance, be evaluated through the HERA Job Evaluation process (unless it is already in existence as a recognised University of York role). Advice on the content of the job description and person specification should be sought from experienced managers and the HR Department. The level of appointment required must be carefully compiled and evaluated in order to attract people with particular experience or expertise.
Part of this process will require careful budgetary consideration and it is important for the delivery of your project to identify staff costs properly to ensure that you can appoint at the level required to attract an appropriately qualified and experienced researcher. Provision at a suitable level should be included in your submission and the advice of your Faculty Research Operations team and the HR Department should be sought in good time. It is essential to allow for annual increments, and if the funding body does not allow for automatic pay increases then provision for these should be built into the application using the correct Worktribe template.
There are certain requirements in the recruiting process to ensure fair and equal procedures. The expectation is that a role will, normally, be put out to open recruitment to enable a range of candidates to apply and to ensure that a non discriminatory and fair process has been applied. You should follow the guidance available through the HR Web pages.
There are some very limited exceptions to this requirement, namely direct appointments and named researchers. In the case of direct appointments, these may be made but only for a maximum period of three months. Thereafter the role must become, at the least, a fixed term contract and must be made available to open recruitment. Named researchers have particular requirements and are dealt with on a case by case basis. Further advice on these areas must be sought from the HR Department and Research Support Office.
Any member of staff must have permission to work in the UK to be employed by the University of York.
UK, European Economic Area and Swiss Nationals have permission to work in the UK, Permission to work is likely to be required in order to employ a person who is a national of a country that is not a member of the European Economic Area (EEA). There are a range of tiers which may need to be considered in the employment of staff: Tier 1 allows for Highly Skilled Workers, Tier 2 is the Sponsored Skilled Worker Scheme. Tier 4 refers to Students. Tier 5 is the Government Authorised Exchange and may be appropriate for Sponsored Researchers from outside the UK, EEA and Switzerland.
It is important that you seek guidance from HR before embarking upon permission to work procedures. Full guidance is available on the Human Resources website.
Funding, grants and contracts
- Applying for funding
- Intellectual property
- Glossary of abbreviations
- Frequently asked questions