Hmmm, I work in the Learning and Teaching Development Unit. I wonder how much impact we’ve had…. The Times Higher Education doesn’t feel much over the past few years:
Negotiations and consultations with a powerful, self-regarding sector led to a different outcome altogether. The universities lobby succeeded in transforming the idea of extra payments to excellent teaching departments into money for quasi-research units that would “recognise” teaching. They would really have liked the cash without any strings at all, but they settled for the next best thing.
So universities got funds for “research and development” in teaching rather than a reward for employing good practice and attracting the best students. “Pedagogic research” is, in my experience, work that would only rarely be admissible for the research assessment exercise or research excellence framework.
Read full story, another story, and editor’s view.
