HR Policies & Guidance

Recruitment Approvals Process

School approval is required for the majority of academic, academic-related and assistant posts within the School. This allows the School Office to identify and resolve any financial or HR issues at an early stage. Academic (UTO) posts require permission from the School Needs Committee; please see the section below entitled Academic Recruitment.

The following posts do NOT require School approval before advertising:

• Fixed-term researcher, assistant or academic-related posts which are entirely grant-funded and where the employment term ends before the grant funding finishes
• Grade 1 cleaners

For posts requiring School permission, please note:

• Subject to the exceptions above, vacancies will only be approved on RAS once they have been approved by the School Officers.
• The School Officers (Head of School, School Secretary, Deputy School Secretary, Finance Manager, HR Business Manager) consider recruitment cases weekly, on Tuesday mornings.
• Departments are to submit any recruitment cases for consideration the following week by 5pm on Friday.  Departments are to submit cases via the online Recruitment Exception Form.
• The following information should be provided under question 18 on why the case needs filling:
  • Reason for recruitment (including whether filling an existing vacancy or a new post).
  • Details of the vacancy, including, where relevant, the name of the previous post occupant.
  • Is the role business critical? Why, and what would be the impact of not recruiting?
  • Source of funding, and details of any posts being supressed or reduced to help fund the new position.
  • For Chest-funded posts only, if it is not a like for like replacement, how is it going to be funded within your existing budget?
• Following consideration on Tuesday mornings, recruitment cases will be approved/declined on the Recruitment Protocol online system and departments will be notified of the outcome.  For cases where School approval is given, departments can progress recruitment. Vacancies on RAS are approved by the School Finance Manager.
• General enquiries regarding SPS recruitment approvals should be emailed to PhysicalSciences@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Note that requests for contract extensions follow the same process, and should be submitted via the Contract Engagement/Extension Form.

Academic Recruitment

Academic Recruitment in the School of the Physical Sciences

Selection Committee Report Form

Selection Committees Memberships

Establishment Timetable for Professorships 2020-21

SPS DORA implementation guidance

This policy must be followed by Departments when recruiting to academic roles.  The Selection Committee Report Form is used to complete step 21 of the process.  Selection Committee memberships are published online, as noted in step 32 of the process.

For further information, please contact the School HR Business Manager. 

Re-Grading / Grading Posts Guidance

​Re-Grading / Grading Posts Guidance

When submitting all existing filled and unfilled Chest posts for formal re-grading, Departments are required to request approval from the School Office in advance of sending to the HR Grading Team.  The School Office generally requires:

• An organisational chart showing the role
• The new and old role profiles (preferably with changes shown as tracked changes)
• A brief support case outlining the reasons for the request and confirming support
• Confirmation of the source of funds for the higher grade

School approval is not required for:

• Requests for informal grading advice from HR
• Updates to role profiles where no change to grade is sought

Please send re-grading requests to the Deputy School Secretary. 

Academic Career Pathways - School Indicators of Excellence

​Further to the approval of the Report of the General Board on arrangements for the implementation of the Academic Career Pathways scheme, Local Indicators of Excellence for the School of the Physical Sciences have been approved by the Council of the School as set out below.

Academic Career Pathways - School Indicators of Excellence

The local Indicators of Excellence are in addition to the more generic Indicators of Excellence at University level set out in the ACP Guidance.

The ACP Guidance can be found on the HR webpages here.  This Guidance provides full details of the Assessment Criteria for promotion to Professor, Professor (Grade 11) and Associate Professor (Grade 10) and the Generic examples of Indicators of Excellence and impact.

Retirements Committee Deadlines

Applications for extensions to work beyond retirement must be approved by the School Needs Committee and then the University Retirements Committee. Please submit a completed RP2A form and a CV for consideration by the Needs Committee by the deadline below.