Linking Teaching and Research at the Institutional Level

Linking Teaching and Research within Institutions

With separate funding streams for teaching and research, separate Pro-Vice-Chancellors heading up each area and usually separate committee structures in Universities dealing with each, teaching and research can often appear to exist in parallel universes within HEIs. Institutional strategies for Research frequently make no mention of Learning and Teaching, and Learning and Teaching strategies often either make no mention of Research, or at best say that teaching should be informed or linked to research whilst being vague about how it should be done.

This was certainly the case in the 1990s, but increasingly institutions have been looking for synergies to maximise the benefits of each to the other. Jenkins and Healey (2005) is a survey done for the Higher Education Academy looking at the national and international context of linking the two, and provides case studies of what can be done at the institutional level to improve linkage, and what the benefits are.

"The volume is an invaluable source of ideas, references, web-links and descriptions of good practice for institutions wishing to develop the relationship further. The issue is one with which the HigherEducationAcademy is engaging, and this publication represents a key component of that engagement." – Michael Prosser, Former Director, Research and Evaluation of the HEA

Key Publication:

Alan Jenkins and Mick Healey, Institutional Strategies to Link Teaching and Research, Higher Education Academy – October 2005