upSkill.Map: Enhancing Researchers’ Competencies with CARE–KNOW–DO

How it was developed

The instrument was co-designed with input from experts and researchers, and piloted through both quantitative and qualitative methods. To ensure reliability and robustness, the tool underwent psychometric validation, including factor analysis and reliability testing, which showed very strong internal consistency.

Equally important was feedback from participants. Forty researchers completed the assessment and shared insights into how they understood the competencies and how these related to their own development. This combination of data sources helped refine the instrument to make it both rigorous and user-friendly.

 

What we found

From researchers’ reflections, five broad areas of competence stood out.

The first relates to how researchers connect their work to wider responsibilities. It is not only about producing sound knowledge but also about embedding ethics and sustainability into everyday practice and ensuring that findings can inform policy and decision-making.

The second area highlights the importance of working well with others. Researchers emphasised the need to lead collaboratively, communicate clearly, and create inclusive environments that value different voices and perspectives.

A third theme centres on navigating uncertainty and change. Participants saw creativity, flexibility, and adaptability as crucial qualities for researchers, enabling them to respond constructively when facing new challenges, shifting contexts, or unexpected results.

The fourth area concerns the ability to build bridges across boundaries. This includes reaching beyond one’s own discipline, using a range of methods, and connecting with different communities to create knowledge that is richer and more comprehensive.

Finally, the fifth theme relates to making research matter in society while supporting resilience and growth. Researchers valued not only generating impact but also ensuring that their work helps build capacity—both within their own careers and in the wider research ecosystem.

Together, these areas show that researchers volunteers who joined this study are motivated by more than technical skill. They see value in aligning research with responsibility, inclusiveness, creativity, collaboration, and social purpose.

Researchers placed the highest importance on resilience, collaboration, and capacity building, showing a strong commitment to working together and navigating the challenges of modern research life. At the same time, the study highlighted gaps in institutional support: many participants reported limited encouragement for interdisciplinary work, insufficient recognition of responsible research practices, and a lack of structured training to translate research into impact.

A key limitation was the small number of respondents (n = 40 of ~500 invited). Initial recruitment through the Open University’s doctoral programme yielded just 10 participants (<2%), with a further 30 recruited voluntarily via purposive and snowball sampling across four programmes. This low participation suggests that eco-outwards professional development currently attracts relatively few researchers.

Nevertheless, the instrument’s design ensured robustness: qualitative analysis enriched the quantitative results, the think-piece activity minimised bias in self-reports, and the diversity of participants’ backgrounds contributed to a broadly representative dataset.

These findings point to an opportunity: institutions can begin raising awareness and fostering engagement even with small numbers. By collaborating as an alliance, they can build a critical mass of researchers committed to shaping professional development programmes that balance local specificities with shared practices, promoting responsible, socially meaningful, and sustainable research. Reflective tools like upSkill.Map offer practical ways for researchers to explore competencies and contribute to this evolving eco-outwards research culture.

 

What this means for researcher development

The results from upSkill.Map suggest both optimism and urgency. Researchers are motivated to embrace competencies aligned with responsibility, justice, and sustainability. However, without stronger institutional frameworks, their ability to do so is constrained.

The CARE–KNOW–DO approach helps shift the conversation from “lists of skills” to a developmental journey that links values, knowledge, and practice. By positioning care and justice as integral—not optional—components of researcher development, the framework offers a way to cultivate more resilient, ethical, and socially engaged research cultures.

This aligns closely with European Union priorities, particularly Horizon Europe’s emphasis on responsible research and innovation (RRI), as well as with UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development agenda, which calls for education and research that equip people to shape fairer and more sustainable futures.

 

Moving forward

upSkill.Map can be used in several ways:

• For individual researchers, it offers a reflective space to consider personal strengths, growth areas, and alignment with societal challenges.
• For doctoral training and early career programs, it provides evidence-based insights into the kinds of competencies that need more structured support.
• For institutions and policymakers, it offers a scalable mechanism to monitor and strengthen researcher development strategies in ways that align with global sustainability priorities.

As part of our commitment to open science, we are sharing these findings not only through academic publication but also through this knowledge article. Our aim is to inform those who participated in the study, and also to open up a wider conversation as well invitation for an expression of interest in participating in the METEOR research professional development programme with non-formal activities.

 

Invitation to reflect

We see upSkill.Map as more than an assessment—it is a catalyst for dialogue. We encourage researchers, supervisors, and institutions to use it as a way of reflecting together on how research can be both excellent and socially transformative.

Some questions you might ask yourself include:

• Which CARE–KNOW–DO dimensions do I currently emphasise most in my research?
• Where do I feel strongest, and where do I want to grow further?
• How does my institution support—or hold back—my ability to work responsibly, collaboratively, and with impact?
• What could be done differently to align researcher development with sustainability and justice?