HIGHER EDUCATION
POLICY AND THE TEACHING-RESEARCH NEXUS
Society for Research
into Higher Education
Date - 18 June 2014, 13.00-16:00
Venue - London Metropolitan University, 166-220 Holloway
Road, London, N7 8DB
Network - Higher Education Policy
This seminar will consider the often contested relationship
between teaching and research in higher education. It is particularly timely
given the recent call by David Willetts, Minister for Universities, for a
cultural change towards a greater emphasis on teaching. The context is one in
which research reputation is critical in the global prestige economy of higher
education, but where designations of academics and universities as
‘teaching-only’ are not uncommon in an increasingly diversified and stratified
HE sector.
‘‘Can we speak of ‘teaching’ and
‘research’ any more, and what does this mean for academic work?”
William Locke,
(Institute of Education University of London)
The separation of teaching and research is the result of
policy and operational decisions made over some forty years or so to
distinguish the way these activities are funded, managed, assessed and
rewarded. This separation has gone so far that institutions and
individuals that wish to, must make deliberate efforts to optimise the
beneficial relationships between the two core activities. It could also
be argued that the descriptive terms ‘research’ and ‘teaching’ no longer
adequately capture the vast array of activities that institutions providing
higher education now undertake. Yet the processes of extension,
fragmentation and disintegration, paradoxically, may be creating new spaces and
opportunities for reintegrating and reinventing the core activities of higher
education.
For this potential to be fully realised, however, may
require a very different division of labour and, in particular, a significant
reconfiguring of academic work. This contribution will build on an
international study of the academic profession, current evidence of changes in
the academy during the recession and studies undertaken for the HEA.
“Re-Rethinking links
between research, teaching and educational agendas: Should we?”
Dr. Vicky Gunn,
(University of Glasgow)
This presentation will note the discursive re-valuing of
teaching agendas within research-intensive institutions as part of an apparent
shift in emphasis within UK (in different ways depending on the devolved
funding regime) and European contexts. In such a renewed policy focus,
pragmatic questions about what this might mean in actuality have yet to be
answered.
As this discursive shift is also happening at a time of
change in the way academic career pathways are developing, the links between
the researcher roles and teaching responsibilities are being embodied through
reward and recognition criteria which do not necessarily align with the more
centrally driven agendas outlined in the policy statements. Indeed,
reward and recognition criteria tend to focus on individual activity and are
not necessarily underpinned with a problematised understanding of the
orientations towards aspects of research as well as education that seem present
in the academic community.
This paper will outline two sets of orientations: those
related to being a researcher as identified by Hakali & Ylijoki (2001) and
Åkerlind (2008) and
those related to the educational outcomes academics ascribe to what a university
education is about (Gunn & Fisk, 2013). It will suggest that from
these, within research-intensive contexts in particular, we might need a new
frame of reference for research-teaching linkages, one that encompasses the
discussions and practices of the last decade, but reorients curricular activity
towards the spaces of researcher development as it is now constructed.
The discussion will draw on the presenter’s work relating to
the development of graduate attributes through research-teaching linkages (QAA
Scotland) and her recent HEA commissioned review, Considering Teaching
Excellence in HE since 2007.
Lunch will be available at 1pm and the event will start at 1.40. After each
paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity
to discuss issues raised in both papers over tea or coffee.
For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact
the network convenor, Prof. Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in
Education, London Metropolitan University, c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk
Note: Unless otherwise stated SRHE events are free to
members, there is a charge of £60 for non-members.
**END**
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