Transcript Slide 1

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Can we speak of ‘teaching’
and ‘research’ any more,
and what does this mean
for academic work?’
William Locke
Centre for Higher Education Studies
Outline: four linked arguments
• Teaching and research are now largely separate activities as a result
of policy and operational decisions to distinguish the way these
activities are funded, managed, assessed and rewarded
• Even including ‘service’, these terms no longer adequately describe
what HEIs, academics and professional support staff do
• Nevertheless, the processes that have led to this are creating new
opportunities for linking knowledge creation, exchange and acquisition
in all its forms
• However, for these opportunities to be fully realised will require a
reconceptualisation and reconfiguration of academic work, roles,
careers, divisions of labour and a transformation of the HE ‘workforce’.
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Robbins report
‘There is no borderline between teaching and research; they
are complementary and overlapping activities. A teacher who
is advancing his general knowledge of his subject is both
improving himself as a teacher and laying foundations for his
research. The researcher often finds that his personal work
provides him with fresh and apt illustration which helps him
set a subject in a new light when he turns to prepare a
lecture.’
(Committee on Higher Education, 1963)
Key factors in the T-R relationship
Teaching
Research
General
• Teaching Quality Assessment/
Subject Review /Institutional
Audit &Review
• Expansion (including
postgraduate taught provision)
• Validation by universities of
awards at non-degree awarding
institutions
• Franchising provision to further
education colleges
• Trebling of undergraduate fees
(twice)
• Changes to the criteria for
university title (the creation of
teaching-only universities)
• Growing influence of
performance indicators (DLHE,
NSS, etc)
• Funding reductions, targeted
funding
• Proposal to give degree
awarding powers to nonteaching bodies (e.g.
examination bodies)
• Research Assessment
Exercises
• QR (quality research)
funding
• Selectivity: funding
concentrated in fewer
institutions &
departments
• Dual Support (from
funding councils &
research councils
• Prominence & prestige of
research
• Contract research(ers)
• Intellectual property
rights applied to research
outputs
• Reduced research
council funding
•End of tenure for academic staff
•‘Casualisation’ of teaching staff
•End of binary divide between
universities & polytechnics
•Introduction of UG tuition fees
•Teaching-only/research-only
contracts
•Use of graduate teaching
assistants
•HE predominantly perceived as a
private good rather than a public
benefit
•Knowledge Exchange/ ‘Third
Stream’ funding
•Tying HE to the goal of national
economic development
•Encouragement to private
providers
The third dimension?
Teaching, Research and...
Service
Administration
Academic citizenship
Engagement
Public intellectuals
Knowledge exchange
Third stream/leg
Collaboration with business & the community
Enterprise
Consultancy
Scholarship of application...
The disintegration of teaching and research 1
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Impact of research assessment and funding on both research and
teaching
Funding, management, QA and recognition of both research and teaching
do not incentivise their integration
Initiatives to raise the status of teaching to achieve parity with research
tend to employ the language of research ‘excellence’ and attempt to
restore the central place of teaching in a ‘world class’ university
Efforts to identify indicators of teaching quality and include these in online
data facilities (eg KIS/Unistats, U-Multirank)
Attempts to identify ‘dimensions of quality’
Paradoxically, these further emphasise the separation of teaching and
research…and the hegemony of research
The disintegration of teaching and research 2
• The centrality of ‘classroom-based instruction’ in HE pedagogy is in
question, despite the national preoccupation with ‘contact hours’
• Variety of forms, modes and locations of learning, and the
requirements of graduates entering a range of employment and further
training
• The changing nature of knowledge and its production
• Widening participation and facilitating progression: changing the nature
of curriculum and pedagogy
• Strategic, institution-wide use of ICTs and open educational resources
• Multi-skilled teams of academics, professional support staff and ‘paraacademics’
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The disintegration of teaching and research 3
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Broadening the spectrum of research as the range of government,
corporate and social bodies interested in its outputs has extended
Shifts in modes of knowledge production to include applied, collaborative
and interdisciplinary research has impacted on research activity
Telling the ‘impact’ story: moving from an afterthought to a key aspect of
the research design process
Fragmentation of roles: basic research, data analysis, project
management, preparation of research proposals, reporting, ‘public
engagement’ with findings
‘Professionalisation’ of the research proposal process, increasingly run by
separate units to maximise success rates
“Even though there is a spoken acknowledgement that all three
(teaching, research, and service) are important, every academic knows
there is a hierarchy, with research sitting at the top … I think academic
institutions forget that we need a blended balance of strong teachers
and strong researchers in order to make the university viable and
profitable – and we can’t expect that we’ll get both out of one person
who has any sort of work-life balance!”
From Bexley et al, 2011
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New opportunities for linking knowledge
creation, exchange and acquisition?
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Integrating undergraduate students into departmental research cultures
Student-driven (pedagogic?) research into improving their own learning
experiences
Open access research outputs
Open innovation models of networking between universities and business
These are only just beginning to be explored, let alone investigated and
understood – but research into this should be a priority
Significant obstacles to taking advantage of these lie at the heart of the
academic profession (and the HE workforce) and the way it is currently
conceived and configured
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“The traditional model of academic work evolved to serve the
knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination needs of a
student body and a society different to those it serves today. The
unbundling of academic work is an evolutionary stage in the way in
which universities are organized to fulfil their social mission. This
process will not be successful if a diverse range of contributions are not
placed on equal footing within the policies and cultures of universities.”
Bexley et al, 2011: xv
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A differentiated profession
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In different types of institution
Full- and part-time
Permanent and fixed-term contracts
Teaching & research, teaching-only and research-only
contracts
• Senior (professors and senior lecturers/researchers) &
junior grades
• In different academic disciplines
• Academics and ‘para-academics’
Trends in the HE ‘workforce’
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Slow-down (but not a reduction) in academic recruitment
Increase in teaching-only contracts (roles?)
Decrease in numbers of professional and support staff
Professional support staff taking on more academic functions
Redundancies/severance and changes to reward packages and terms and
conditions in order to increase flexibility and manage expenditure on staff
Intensification of performance management and metrics, workload
allocation, a ‘hardening’ of the HR function, use of shared services and
outsourcing
Increasing pressure on middle managers who may not be well equipped to
face these challenges
All (not just front-line) staff are being required to become more ‘customerfocused’
Changing staff expectations, especially younger, professional and
international entrants to the academy
Staff in UK HE institutions
2004/05 to 2012/13
250000
200000
150000
Academic
Non-academic
100000
50000
0
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2004/05
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
HESA 2006-2014
Academic employment function
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Neither
Research only
50%
Teaching only
Teaching & research
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
HESA 2014
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Academic employment function by
mode of employment 2012/13
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Full-time
50%
Part-time
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Teaching only
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Teaching & research
Research only
Neither
HESA 2014
Terms of academic employment
200000
180000
160000
140000
120000
Open-ended/permanent
100000
Fixed-term contract
80000
60000
40000
20000
0
2008/09
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2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
HESA 2010-2014
Impact of marketisation on the workforce
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New methods of calculating course costs and surpluses
Efforts to improve staff:students ratios
Reconsideration of the balance between permanent, temporary and hourlypaid staff
Workforce planning: increasingly, a direct link is being drawn between staff and
student numbers
Process reviews in order to streamline student support functions: the
administrative function is being more closely aligned with student support and
the student experience
Specialist academic labour markets: e.g. research stars, academics from the
professions, enterpreneurs/managers, institutional leaders
Those HEIs that are more successful in the market, may try to attract highperforming teaching staff from other institutions
“Achieving success in the rapidly changing environment … requires,
above all, a very clear strategy. Everyone, from the senior team down,
needs a very clear understanding of what you are about. What makes
your university the destination of choice for a certain group of students,
staff and business partners? How can you differentiate yourself from
competitors, including further education colleges and private providers?
And in some cases it is going to require some judicious pruning to
concentrate on real strengths…
We’re seeing a substantial shift in our business model. It’s rapid. The
results are uncertain. But there will be more continuity than change.
Indeed continuity will be one of the features of the success stories.”
Eric Thomas, President, UUK & VC, University of Bristol (2012)
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“Our major challenge is taking the whole academic body on
the next phase of the journey, where the skill set, skill mix
and working requirements will be very different from those
in the past. Some won’t be able to make the journey.”
PA Consulting (2010) Escaping the Red Queen Effect
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In conclusion: some questions
• How do we optimise the synergies between these (now) loosely
coupled activities?
• How can we develop a more equitable and nuanced approach to the
diversity of academic and related activity in our institutions?
• How do we handle different individuals’ motivations, expectations and
career ambitions?
• What are the prospects for recruiting the next generation of academics,
academic managers and academic leaders?
• What are the implications for institutional, faculty and departmental
management, and for policy makers, funders and regulators?
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Thank you for listening.
Questions or comments?
William Locke
Co-Director
Centre for Higher Education Studies
Email: [email protected]
@wdlocke
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-locke/3b/341/234
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Institute of Education
University of London
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Email [email protected]
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