The research staff is part of the research staff of the Spanish System of Science, Technology and Innovation (SECTI), which comprises the research staff, the technical staff and the management, administration and services staff related to research, development, knowledge transfer and innovation.
The Basic Statute of the Public Employee allows to dictate unique rules for research personnel, to adapt that statute to the peculiarities of these personnel. Therefore, Law 14/2011, of 1 June, on Science, Technology and Innovation (LCTI) includes a specific title II regulating human resources dedicated to research, complemented by the first and related additional provisions.
According to the LCTI, the research staff is the one who, being in possession of the required degree in each case, carries out a research activity, understood as the creative work carried out systematically to increase the volume of knowledge, the use of that knowledge to create new applications, and its transfer and dissemination.
The European Research Career Framework (2011) describes four profiles of research staff, independent of any particular sector:
- R1 (Early-stage researcher)
- R2 (Recognized researcher)
- R3 (Consolidated Investigator)
- R4 (Principal investigator).
The research staff at the service of public universities, Public Research Bodies and Research Bodies of other Public Administrations may be linked to the destination body as:
- Labor personnel, which may be fixed, or hired through the labor figures included in the LCTI (indefinite, pre-doctoral, access contracts of research staff doctor, and distinguished researcher), or other labor figures of the Workers’ Statute, and in the case of the teaching and research personnel of the Universities through the labor contracts of the Organic Law 2/2023, of March 22, of the University System.
- Official personnel, from the ranks of Senior Scientific Staff, Scientific Research Staff and Research Professors of the Public Research Agencies, from the university teaching bodies (University Professors and University Professors and University Professors), or from the bodies and ranks created by the Autonomous Communities, among others.
Private entities and other public entities may also use the contractual labor figures of the LCTI as long as they meet the requirements set forth in the first additional provision of the LCTI.
The public employment offer approved annually contains the positions of official research staff and fixed labor research staff of the Public Administrations.
The criteria for the selection of research personnel are based on the constitutional principles of equality, merit and capacity, as well as publicity of the calls and their bases, transparency, impartiality, professionalism, independence and technical discretion of the selection bodies, adequacy between the content of the selective processes and the functions or tasks to be carried out, and agility in the selection processes, without prejudice to objectivity.
Law 17/2022, of September 5, which amended the LCTI, has created a new scientific itinerary in the public sector aimed at stability:
- It redefines the contract of access to the System and replaces it with a new contract of access of research staff doctor.
- Create a new indefinite contract for lines of research or scientific-technical services.
- It provides for the incorporation of statutory investigative personnel into the National Health System.
- It establishes measures for attracting foreign talent and returning Spanish staff.
- It redefines the distinguished researcher contract to attract prestigious scientific and technical staff.
- In the field of equality, it proposes a dual approach, on the one hand, with the adoption of concrete measures to achieve effective equality between women and men in R+D+I, and on the other hand with the configuration of the gender perspective as a transversal axis of the planning instruments of public agents.
