The Warwick promotion criteria provide a teaching-focused route to professor. This page leverages research conducted by the Teaching Recognition and Reward learning circles that engaged teaching-focused professors at Warwick to understand their career planning, draw on their experiences and advice to create advice, examples and tips that provide resources to help you strategically plan your career pathway to professor.

Advice for academic staff seeking promotion

Developing a scholarly/research profile.

All of the interviewees talked about the importance of research and scholarship in the form of publishing articles or textbooks and doing research-informed teaching. Research should be considered in its broadest sense and does not need to be limited to journal publications. Outputs may be action-based projects, co-creation and so on.

This is important in the sense that it might be assumed that teaching-focused staff are only supposed to teach, whereas according to one of the interviewees,

“The promotion criteria at Warwick are very clear that you know, whatever track you're going on for promotion, research is the first box on the promotion form.” 

Research/scholarship is not exclusive to promotion to a professor, meaning most academic staff have been research-active to become associate professors. For advancement to professorship, it is essential to go beyond tick-boxing to be able to demonstrate that the research/scholarship activity has been constant. Research/scholarship activities should be strategically used to build an identity and reputation, to gain international recognition, and to network with other academics, all of which are further elaborated on in this section. 

Being proactive in seeking promotion advice

Effective communication was highlighted as crucial in the professorial applications. One professor discovered they met the requirements for the application through a PDR, despite never having considered it before. However, not all managers may suggest that one applies for professorship unless they know that the staff member intends to do so. More importantly, for those who have reached the final grade on the associate professor scale, the line manager can provide feedback on areas that need improvement and suggest ways to address them. However, such conversations will only take place if academic staff seek advice on their shortcomings for promotion.  

This communication is specifically important when it comes to taking on roles to meet the management and leadership criteria. As one of the participants suggests,

it is important to be “proactive in approaching your line manager, your head of department, deputy head of department … because if you don't do that, no one's actually going to know that you've got a desire to take on these types of administrative roles.” 

It is also important to communicate your desire to be considered for awards or prizes. One of the participants believes that institutional awards for teaching and education are often very poorly nominated for. He says,

“In actual fact, if you don't ask to be nominated, you don't get nominated and you don't get recognised.” Making it clear that you would like to be nominated for prizes can lead to awards that are proof of impact. 

Asking to be introduced to possible connections to expand one’s network can help academic staff with finding referees. One of the professors says, 

I don't think there's any harm in being really honest and saying, look, I'm on a trajectory for path and I need to grow my international network. I would love to find out what people are doing in America or wherever it is. Do you know anybody that I could just connect with and just have a chat? 

When it comes to the application itself, effective communication is more about improving one’s communication skills. Two of the professors pointed out the fact that some academic staff tend to “undersell themselves.” One of these professors points out that

“everybody needs to get better at negotiating and pointing out what they do that contributes to the department's alter the university.” 

Networking 

Networking can be informal such as seeking advice from colleagues or formal relationships with academics nationally or internationally. It is particularly beneficial to finding referees, collegiality, and building the desired identity and reputation that forms the framework for professorial applications. However, such conversations can also inform academic staff of their next move in their careers. For example, one of the participants learned about the teaching-focused professorial path during informal conversations. She said, 

At the very start, I didn't really have any idea where I wanted to get to, but by speaking to other people who'd gone down that path of teaching-focused professor, I then realised that it was a potential path that I could get to within our department. So, I only sort of really discovered where I wanted to get almost by chance by chatting to people and realising that it actually was a pathway that was open and then just trying to find out more information about it. 

Although she called it “chance”, it is important to understand that this chance incident would never have occurred had they not engaged in conversations about her job.  

Liaising with people not only provides academic staff with the chance to communicate, get advice, and feedback but also opens up opportunities to engage in activities that can enhance their profile. 

I was liaising with people across the university so that I was almost becoming a familiar name to people in other departments so that if there was some Committee or steering group or something that was taking place. It might be my name that they might think of as being involved in those types of things. 

The best places to build such networks at an international level are conferences and WIHEA within the university. 

More important than building relationships is sustaining them. For instance, one professor said that she regretted not having kept in touch with people who approached her when she was introducing technological innovations. Some ways of maintaining these relationships are exchanging ideas through correspondence and inviting them to seminars. 

One of the professors suggested keeping a record of all the people you communicate with as it makes it easier to find them when applying for professor.  

Seek opportunities or take those that arise.

Getting involved in various opportunities can lead to learning, sharing experiences, networking, confidence building, and building reputation. One professor said that he

“never turned down an opportunity to do some outreach and engagement.”

He continued that one of his international references was someone he met where he delivered a masterclass instead of a colleague. 

The opportunities that most interviewees found useful were WIHEA and its learning circles, the principal fellowship (as recognition of teaching), and collaboration with students, colleagues, and other academics. Other opportunities include reading groups, promotion mentors, the Monash-Warwick alliance, and using available data and research funding to do research. 

However, as it will be later elaborated, academic staff must prioritise activities that align with their development needs and manage time wisely. In fact, taking part in many open days and graduation ceremonies was negatively referred to as they may not help with climbing up the ladder. 

Planning

It is important to note that one will not be automatically promoted to professor after a certain number of years. Therefore, planning to act according to the promotion criteria is essential. As one of the participants notes,

“Think very carefully about those promotion criteria and you know be thinking what are you doing and where are the gaps.”

To identify these gaps, it is important for academic staff to objectively evaluate themselves and ask themselves “whether they are doing the things that will help their career develop.” 

The first important point is the realisation that the responsibility of progressing towards promotion is on the shoulders of the individual. 

I really think that if people can do things from the bottom up and grow their own, I know it does need okaying and you know green lighting from more senior people, I don't think we're ever going to be in a world where the senior managers are saying oh well we really need you to do all of these. 

Once academic staff have found what aspects of their career they need to improve to get the promotion, it is vital to manage their time. Most of the participants agreed that teaching-focused academic staff have a heavy workload. However, as one of them puts it, taking responsibility for managing time and prioritising the workload is what matters. 

I know that I'm already too busy really to be doing this. So, you know, where do I wanna focus my energy if I'm gonna do something, I wanna do it properly. I think individuals have to protect time. ... Yeah, we've all got way more work than there are hours in the week. And I think ultimately one has to make a personal decision as to ‘Am I prepared to actually block time’ or you know prioritise and you know, I know I've got to do all my marking now and I can't write this paper, but I am gonna prioritise time to do that another time. I do think that nobody's ever gonna do that for us. 

Another important aspect of planning is collecting evidence. academic staff need to realise that progress is not just about doing many things but about being able to prove it. Collecting evidence is a long-term process. Therefore, as one of the participants puts it,

“The sooner one starts collecting evidence of all workshops, graduations, badges, etc. the better.” This is also important when it comes to published papers as the number of citations and index rating matter. Thus, academic staff need to plan well in advance. 

While most of the participants said that they found planning against promotion criteria useful, it is important that in many cases, they did not specifically do it themselves as either the promotion criteria were not defined the way it is now or they did not do all to apply for professorship, but rather out of personal interest or to develop in general. This brings us to the next recurrent theme, which revolves around constant development in an area that you want to be known for rather than doing separate activities to just tick box the promotion criteria. 

Create your academic identity.

Academic identity as defined by one of the participants is “who am I? What's the work I'm doing? What do I want to be known for?”  

Participants explicitly talked about constant development. However, this development needs to be consistent with one’s identity. Promotion to professor is not about tick boxing but rather about creating a “cohesive narrative”.  

So I've seen some people in academia who've decided they want to be teaching focused professors, and they look at the criteria either at Warwick or at the universities and, ... It doesn't matter whatever the criteria, they look at them and just go right okay those are tick box criteria. I will do that. I will get a national role. I will get a regional role. I will get a pedagogy publication and it's totally the wrong approach because what you need to do is develop consistently overtime so that you have a detailed and consistent CV. 

For the profile to be cohesive, academic staff need to see their trajectory as an overall piece demonstrating their academic identity. This is where passion comes in. In the life stories of half of these participants, a passion in an area was pivotal. 

I still have a genuine love and fascination for the use of technology to support teaching. I didn't get interested in technology cause I thought oh this this could be my unique selling point it was a genuine sort of fascination for it. 

Another participant said, 

I'd like to say that I thought oh this will be really good for my CV, but I didn't but I didn't. I was just like Oh, that sounds interesting. 

Building your reputation 

As previously mentioned, for successful applications, it is important to have evidence of development and meeting promotion criteria. Therefore, it is important to get visibility and credibility for what you've done. What contributes to visibility and credibility is listed below. 

• Being a pioneer or being involved in an innovation 

All participants were in a way involved in setting up a group, designing a program, using new technology, leading their discipline, creating opportunities, and innovation. 

• Getting awards and prizes such as teaching excellence awards 
• Excelling in one’s role Excelling in one’s role is representative of what one is capable of. Participants achieved outstanding results in module evaluations and demonstrated excellent leadership qualities while taking on small managerial roles.
• Being involved in impactful activities that can lead to others’ growth 

• collaborating at a departmental, university-wide, national, and international level working with institutional committees, professional networks, national bodies, external examining, international organisations 

• Being an active member of the department, committees, etc. who makes a difference 
• Engaging in academic activities that culminate in publications bearing your name  

Academic activities that can have a positive impact are editing books, organising or presenting at pedagogy conferences, publishing articles, and co-authoring books. 

Promotion references

Although some of the participants reached professorship under different rules, the useful insight from the interviews is that academic staff can think of three groups of people as possible referees. 

• Referees can be people whom you know well like previous colleagues, mentors, and professors. 
• They can also be people whom you know from conferences, external examiners, coauthors or editors you have collaborated with.
• The last type, which might be slightly controversial, is the referee being a total stranger.

While one of the participants believed that a person who does not have enough international connections is not in a position to apply for professorship, other participants mentioned that they had referees who were unknown to them before the application and that they have themselves acted as referees for people that they did not know. These referees can be introduced by proxies or even by contacting professors in universities abroad or top universities within the UK, who can comment on your application. One of the participants frames the rationale behind asking an unknown academic to act as a referee as follows: 

I suppose I tried to reframe what the referee process is ... This is not somebody giving their personal insights into me as somebody that they've worked with, but somebody who's able to give an informed peer review of my claim against a set of criteria. And I found thinking about it through that lens took away actually an awful lot of that anxiety of, well, they don't know what I do. So that way they don't need to know what I do. They don't need to know me because all they're doing is they're judging my claim against the criteria, but I'm hopefully I'm selecting people who are bringing the right lenses to that judgement if that makes sense. 

Other suggestions about references were to choose people who can support different aspects of your claim as well as remind people who know you of your work or the important things that you want them to focus on in their reference. 

Skipping readership 

Finally, while not a direct suggestion made by participants, it is noted that two of the participants did not become readers and directly applied for professorship. This was in one case suggested by their line manager and in the other a decision made by the participant as they felt they were in the position to become a professor and wanted to avoid going through the application process and finding referees twice. Another participant noted that he would suggest those who may have borderline applications to go for professorship directly as

“they will get substantial feedback even if their promotion application does not go through.” 

Advice for line managers and heads of department.

Attitude and fairness 

It is important for Heads of Departments/Line Managers to recognise the importance of teaching-focused staff. The following is how one participant expresses the role of their job within the department. 

recognising the importance of the teaching focused staff, as you know, a means of almost supporting the rest of the departments, supporting the T&R focus colleagues who undoubtedly have a hugely important role but are typically more focused on their research, they're less interested in the teaching side. Despite the fact that the teaching side is what brings in more of the income that enables them to do their research. So I think it's almost a case of trying to trying to show that, you know, teaching focused staff, they're complements to the T&R staff. You know, if they don't exist, then the department is just simply not going to exist cause it's not going to be attracting the students that you need. 

Many commented that teaching-focused staff are not treated in the same way as their teaching and research colleagues.  

So, most important recommendation is that heads of department should always strive to treat colleagues equivalently, so it should never be the case that they see tea and our colleagues as one group of people, and teaching focused colleagues as another group of people, and the two should be that separate and just not treated in the same way. I think that's absolutely crucial to the culture of any departments that you don't want this to be a divide, it's just that people, their emphasis is in different areas. 

Supporting teaching-focused staff’s engagement with scholarship and research 

It is important for Heads of Department to recognised that teaching-focused staff are not teaching-only. This is what one of the participants says with this regard: 

I think heads of departments at Warwick should be reassured that if teaching focus colleagues are going to be promoted, they need to be research-active. And I think still there is that temptation to forget that and to think that these people just do teaching. 

Another participant says: 

Cannon fodders in the classroom… that's what's often we're seen as and so we're not treated in a way that would allow for the development of anything else you want to do. 

It is thus important for Heads of Department to ensure there is time for research/scholarship. This supports both the member of staff and is strategically important for departments and the university. One consequence noted by several professors was the

• explicit need to sacrifice their free time to read or do research to qualify for promotion. 

One stated

I've heard senior people from my department talk about the fact that you have to work above and beyond and over your workload in order to get anywhere well. There is a lack of equity there and a lack of understanding, and I think there's a cultural piece as well. 

The support provided by heads of departments to teaching-focused staff for engaging in research can be in the form of 

• Giving time for research/scholarship, this could also include support scholarship within their education and/or module teaching.
• Giving consideration to how teaching activities are arranged in the week/academic year.

• Supporting scholarship/education seminars in the discipline.
• Supporting funding for conference attendance/encourage/supporting application for education funding.
• Supporting study leave applications.

Supporting the development and promotion of teaching-focused staff  

The next theme is supporting teaching-focus staff by allowing them to showcase their abilities and develop to meet the professorial application criteria. 

• Improving PDRs. The interviewees emphasised the importance of conversation around development with line managers, which is possible if the line managers are approachable. They saw the support and feedback from their line managers as helpful to their progress. Such conversations can happen during the PDR, particularly, if the promotion criteria are embedded with the PDR process. 

I think actually it's about teaching people how to make the PDR meaningful and layering that on in terms of thinking about objective goal setting, what's manageable, what isn't. A better PDR process if the you know if the line management of people makes them a little more realistic in their expectations. 

• Giving teaching-focused roles that can fill in their CV gaps. Providing individuals with roles that can fill the gaps in their CV is a great way to enhance their career prospects. Specifically, such roles can assist them in meeting the requirements for management and leadership criteria in their professorial applications. By taking on challenging and diverse roles, individuals can accumulate valuable experience to “deserve” the promotion as put by interviewees. This experience can also serve as evidence of their skills and abilities.
• Supporting collaborations. To support teaching-focused staff to take part in projects that benefit their development, departments need to foster a culture that values and actively promotes and supports cross-departmental projects. Encouraging staff to collaborate on initiatives outside of their immediate department, such as in the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA), can help to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practices, and ultimately improve the quality of teaching and learning outcomes. By providing opportunities for staff to work together across departments, the department can support the teaching-focused staff to improve their collegiality, and hence the network that provides them with references.

Supporting professorial applications

Most of the professors interviewed mentioned that they were supported by their department in their professorial applications. Departments can support their staff during the process of application by having a mentoring scheme in place, where academic staff can get feedback concerning their applications. Alternatively, good knowledge of the university mentoring scheme is an alternative. One of the participants suggested a sponsoring system with 

somebody independent from another department to act not just as a buddy and as a sponsor to sort of say oh you need to talk to this person or these the opportunities you can think about across the university. 

Standardisation of promotion. During the discussion, it was brought up that there may be discrepancies in the way promotion criteria are interpreted and enforced across different departments or even within the same department. This could result in some employees being evaluated more stringently than others, or having different expectations placed upon them for career advancement. It was suggested that addressing these inconsistencies could help to ensure fairness in the promotion process, and could lead to greater job satisfaction and retention among employees. 

Methodology

The data from interviews with teaching-focused colleagues was thematically analysed. It is important to note that there are only a few teaching-focused professors in the University, most of whom were interviewed. The interviews were read several times in the process of inductive initial coding, refining the codes, and identifying themes based on recurrent codes. Themes are thus, representative of points that most participants referred to.

Although thematic analysis intends to find similarities rather than idiosyncrasies, points mentioned by one or two participants should not be underestimated because the differences in disciplines, departments, and individual career trajectories inevitably lead to differences in the path to promotion. It is also important to note that some of the suggestions were repeatedly mentioned and formed themes in this analysis simply because all interviewees were asked about them. This highlights the limitations caused by the structure of interviews. To get a deeper understanding of the data, however, the goal was to extract themes that are not a simple replication of the interview questions.

Future investigations. This research would benefit from follow-up interviews that invited opinions on points mentioned by one or two participants in the first round of interviews. Future complementary research may also use unstructured interviews to further refine successful strategies that professors have used in preparation for their professorial promotion.