CAREERS RESEARCH AND ADVISORY CENTRE (CRAC) LIMITED (THE)

Their core work

CRAC-Vitae is a Cambridge-based organization specializing in researcher career development, professional skills training, and intersectoral mobility between academia and industry. They provide career advisory services and transferable skills training within EU-funded research training networks, typically brought in as a third-party expert to strengthen the professional development component of Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral and postdoctoral programmes. Their practical contribution is helping early-career researchers build careers beyond the lab — connecting them with industry, improving employability, and supporting institutions in implementing the European Charter for Researchers (HRS4R).

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

CRAC-Vitae's early H2020 work (2016-2017) centred on the EURAXESS ecosystem — building bridges between researchers and industry through employer engagement, open labour market access, and intersectoral collaboration. Their later projects (2017-2021+) show a shift toward embedding career development within specific disciplinary training networks (biomedicine via BITRECS, economics via ExSIDE, pain research via PAIN-Net) and broadening into global responsible research governance through RRING. The evolution suggests a move from building general career infrastructure to delivering tailored professional development within specialized research domains.

CRAC-Vitae is moving from generic researcher career services toward specialized, discipline-embedded professional development — making them increasingly relevant for MSCA proposals that need credible training work packages.

How they like to work

CRAC-Vitae overwhelmingly operates as a third-party expert (4 of 6 projects), brought into consortia to deliver a specific service — researcher career training and professional development. They coordinated one project (EURAXIND) and participated directly in one other, but their typical mode is being embedded within larger training networks rather than leading research. With 91 unique partners across 26 countries, they have an unusually broad network for an SME, reflecting the many different MSCA consortia that call on their expertise.

Despite their small size, CRAC-Vitae has worked with 91 different partners across 26 countries — a remarkably wide network built through their recurring role as a career-training provider across diverse MSCA training networks. Their connections span universities and research institutions across Europe, giving them cross-disciplinary reach.

What sets them apart

CRAC-Vitae occupies a distinctive niche as a dedicated researcher career development organization — not a university, not a consultancy, but a specialist body focused entirely on researcher employability and professional growth. Their deep connection to the EURAXESS network and HRS4R framework gives them institutional credibility that generic training providers lack. For any MSCA proposal needing a strong career development or transferable skills partner, CRAC-Vitae is one of very few organizations in Europe with this as their core mission rather than a side activity.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EURAXIND
  Their only coordinated project (EUR 333,500), directly focused on connecting the EURAXESS network with industry — the clearest expression of their core mission.
• RRING
  A global Responsible Research and Innovation project (EUR 121,250 to CRAC-Vitae) that expanded their scope beyond career services into research governance and ethics at international scale.
• BITRECS
  A six-year MSCA-COFUND programme for clinician-scientists in biomedicine, showing CRAC-Vitae's ability to support career development in highly specialized medical research contexts.