The Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) is a UK-originated professional competency framework describing the knowledge, behaviours and attributes of effective researchers at every career stage, from doctoral candidate through to experienced principal investigator. It is published by Vitae, a programme operated by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) Limited, and it is the reference framework most UK universities use to structure researcher training, appraisal and personal development planning.
Last verified: August 16, 2026. Vitae has been rolling out a refreshed RDF 2025 alongside the long-established RDF 2010 structure described below; see the "RDF 2010 versus the RDF 2025 refresh" section before assuming the domain names here are the only current version.
What the RDF Is and Who Publishes It
Vitae is a UK organisation that supports the professional and career development of researchers and the staff ("researcher developers") who design training for them. It is operated by CRAC, a UK charity working in career development and workforce planning. Vitae publishes the RDF as a free reference tool, alongside related resources such as the RDF Planner, researcher-development benchmarking data, and policy work connected to the Researcher Development Concordat.
The RDF’s own predecessor was the Joint Skills Statement (JSS), a shorter, more compliance-oriented skills list published by UK funding bodies in 2001 to specify generic skills training expected of doctoral researchers. The RDF, first published in 2010, replaced the JSS with a much more granular, developmentally-staged model intended to describe not just doctoral training but a researcher’s whole career trajectory.
The Four Domains and Twelve Sub-Domains
The RDF’s long-established structure (RDF 2010, the version most institutional resources, training curricula and appraisal documents are still mapped to) organises researcher capability into four domains, each broken into three sub-domains, for twelve sub-domains in total. Each sub-domain is in turn described through a set of specific behavioural descriptors.
| Domain | Sub-domains | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| A — Knowledge and Intellectual Abilities | A1 Knowledge base A2 Cognitive abilities A3 Creativity |
The subject expertise, research methods knowledge, critical thinking and original problem-solving that underpin doing research at all. |
| B — Personal Effectiveness | B1 Personal qualities B2 Self-management B3 Professional and career development |
The resilience, self-awareness, time-management and career-planning behaviours that let a researcher sustain and progress a research career. |
| C — Research Governance and Organisation | C1 Professional conduct C2 Research management C3 Finance, funding and resources |
Working within the ethical, legal and governance requirements of research, plus the practical project- and resource-management skills to run it. |
| D — Engagement, Influence and Impact | D1 Working with others D2 Communication and dissemination D3 Engagement and impact |
Collaboration, teamwork, public and scholarly communication, and translating research into wider influence and impact. |
This four-domain, twelve-sub-domain structure is the version most likely to appear in an institution’s own researcher-development pages, a doctoral college’s training curriculum, or an appraisal form that references "RDF domains," so it is the version worth learning first even while the 2025 refresh is underway.
Descriptors and the Phase Structure
Within each of the twelve sub-domains sit a number of descriptors — specific, observable statements of researcher behaviour or attribute. Each descriptor is written across up to four phases, representing a progression from an earlier to a later stage of development rather than a rigid checklist or a pass/fail competency test. A researcher (or their supervisor, mentor or appraiser) uses the phases to locate roughly where current practice sits and what the next stage of development would look like, rather than to certify mastery. Because the phases describe development, not job grade, an experienced researcher can legitimately sit at an earlier phase on some descriptors (for example, a newly adopted analytical method) while sitting at a later phase on others.
How the RDF Is Used in Practice
- Personal development planning (PDP). Researchers use the domains and descriptors as a structured self-assessment tool to identify strengths and priority development areas, then set goals against specific sub-domains.
- Appraisal and review (PDR). Many UK institutions build their researcher/postdoc appraisal or review forms around RDF domains, giving supervisors and researchers a shared vocabulary for discussing progress beyond narrow research-output metrics.
- Training-needs analysis (TNA). Doctoral colleges and researcher-development teams map their workshop and course catalogues onto RDF sub-domains to check coverage and spot gaps, and researchers use the same mapping to choose training relevant to their own development priorities.
- Doctoral programmes. UK doctoral training is where the RDF is most consistently embedded: UKRI’s Research Training Support Grant guidance expects doctoral training providers to offer skills development consistent with the RDF, and structures such as a Doctoral Training Partnership or a Centre for Doctoral Training typically publish their own training curricula mapped explicitly to RDF domains.
- Researcher-developer curriculum design. Staff who design institutional researcher-development programmes (not just doctoral training, but ongoing support for postdoctoral researchers and academic staff) use the RDF as a common reference model when planning and benchmarking provision across institutions.
The RDF Planner
Vitae also publishes the RDF Planner, a structured, reflective online tool that lets a researcher work through the framework directly: rating themselves against descriptors, identifying strengths and priority areas, and recording development goals and actions over time. It is designed to be used self-directed or alongside a supervisor, mentor or researcher-developer, and many institutions point new doctoral researchers and postdocs to it as the starting point for their first personal development plan.
RDF and the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers
The RDF and the Researcher Development Concordat are related but distinct instruments, and it is a common point of confusion worth being precise about:
- The Concordat is a UK sector-wide policy agreement: reciprocal commitments between research organisations, funders and researchers themselves on research culture, employment conditions and career development, assessed at institutional level through the HR Excellence in Research Award (coordinated by Vitae).
- The RDF is a competency and development framework: it describes what researcher capability looks like and how it develops, and gives institutions a practical model to operationalise the Concordat’s professional-and-career-development commitments — for example, an institution’s Concordat action plan will often point to RDF-mapped training and PDP processes as the evidence of how it supports researcher development in practice.
In short: the Concordat sets out what institutions and funders commit to; the RDF is one of the main practical tools UK institutions use to deliver on that commitment.
RDF 2010 Versus the RDF 2025 Refresh
Vitae has been developing a refreshed version of the framework, RDF 2025, described as a sector-led update reflecting how research careers and the wider research landscape have changed since 2010. As of this page’s last verification, Vitae’s own site notes that existing website resources, training curricula and institutional mappings remain built on RDF 2010 (the four-domain, twelve-sub-domain structure described above) while the transition to the refreshed version continues. Vitae has indicated the 2025 refresh reorganises the framework around the researcher and their research community rather than the four-domain grid, while retaining the same underlying idea of descriptors expressed across developmental phases. Because institutional training curricula, appraisal templates and doctoral-programme documentation built over more than a decade are still overwhelmingly written against RDF 2010 language, that is the version this page documents in detail; readers relying on the framework for a specific institutional process should confirm directly with vitae.ac.uk or their own doctoral college which version currently applies.
Using the RDF Outside the UK
The RDF is a UK framework, developed for and most consistently embedded in the UK research and doctoral-training system through the mechanisms above. Non-UK institutions do not typically adopt it formally, and a US, Canadian or other non-UK researcher will not usually find it referenced in their own institution’s appraisal or training-needs documentation. That said, a meaningful share of interest in the RDF comes from outside the UK, and non-UK researchers, postdoc offices and career-development staff do use it informally: the domain structure is a reasonably complete, freely available model for self-assessment and career reflection, and it maps conceptually onto the kind of researcher/postdoc individual development plan (IDP) exercises already common in North American research-career offices, even without a formal institutional adoption. Used this way, the RDF works as a self-directed diagnostic — identifying which domains merit attention — rather than as part of a formal appraisal or funding-compliance process, which is how it functions in its native UK setting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Vitae RDF only for doctoral researchers?
No. It is designed to describe researcher development across the whole career, from doctoral candidate through postdoctoral researcher to experienced principal investigator, though doctoral training is where it is most consistently and formally embedded in UK institutional practice.
Is the RDF free to use?
Yes. Vitae publishes the framework and the RDF Planner as freely accessible resources; formal Vitae membership (which UK universities typically hold) provides additional benchmarking data, training materials and events, but the framework itself is openly published.
What is the difference between the RDF and the Researcher Development Concordat?
The Concordat is a policy agreement setting out institutional and funder commitments to researcher career development; the RDF is the competency framework many institutions use as the practical tool for delivering on those commitments. See the section above for how the two connect.
Do the four phases in the RDF represent job levels?
No. The phases describe developmental progression within a specific descriptor, not seniority or job grade. A researcher can sit at different phases across different descriptors regardless of career stage.
Which RDF version should I use if my institution’s paperwork just says "RDF domains"?
Almost certainly RDF 2010 (the four domains, twelve sub-domains structure on this page) — that is the version the large majority of existing institutional training curricula, appraisal forms and doctoral-programme documentation is mapped to as of this page’s last verification, though check with your doctoral college or researcher-development office if in doubt during the RDF 2025 transition.
