One in five professors in the UK have been promoted to their current position for their teaching achievements, according to a new survey that suggests efforts to raise the status of classroom activities are paying off.
While most professors are still promoted based on their research, a poll by the National Council of University Professors (NCUP) found academics were frequently joining the UK professoriate on account of their teaching, with 20 per cent of 1,018 respondents saying they were promoted on a teaching route.
While the survey offers only a snapshot of how Britain’s 23,000 professors achieved their positions, the prevalence of teaching-led promotions was striking and indicated a significant shift in reward and recognition practices, explained NCUP’s president Roger Watson, who, until autumn last year, was professor of nursing at the University of Hull.
“I cannot recall anyone being promoted by this route when I set out as an academic in 1998 at Edinburgh University and probably only encountered it only about a decade ago,” said Professor Watson, who is academic dean of Southwest Medical University’s School of Nursing in Luzhou, China.
