Teaching academics often struggle to balance their responsibilities for student learning with research activities. With increasing pressure to produce research that leads to articles and successful funding applications, it’s essential to find a balance that…
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If you are ambitious and want to advance your career in academia, you’ll know that funding is essential for your work. Many universities provide internal opportunities to apply for funding. These are a good way…
I’ve worked with a lot of academic staff over the past two decades. As a manager I have discussions about personal development, performance, individual ambitions and how I can support colleagues to achieve their goals….
Performance management in professional working environments is essential. Organisations like universities need staff to collaborate and to continuously improve. Professional staff like academics, professors and researchers often exercise a lot of control over how they…
Managing a researcher who is resistant to teaching or supporting university students can be a delicate situation for any academic manager. While the primary responsibility of a researcher is to conduct high-quality research, universities are…
Performance review meetings with researchers are an essential part of effective performance management. Traditional managers might place more emphasis on an annual performance review meeting (or ‘appraisal’) and this could be quite a formal affair….
“If you knew you couldn’t possibly fail, what would you try?” This is a favourite staple of executive coaches, and for good reason. It strips away everything that inhibits your achievement, and gets you to…
I used to believe my colleagues’ stories. I’d just moved from the manufacturing industry into academia. I was an engineer that used a lot of technology in my job. I wanted a change and became…
University academics bear the mantle of not only advancing knowledge through their research but also shaping the minds of future generations of society. The dual objectives of enhancing research quality and boosting student satisfaction are…
This is by far the most common reaction when discussing the scholarly outputs of an academic, or an academic department. Writing is seen as a potential luxury that has become an inconvenience. Of course, it’s…
A review of research literature is a useful thing to do. It helps us understand what the current thinking, developments and practices are with regard to a particular subject area. The process of creating the…
Conference workshops are perhaps one of the best well-kept secret of successful academic faculty. In terms of professional development and academic excellence, conference workshops stand out as a cornerstone for fostering collaboration, enhancing networking, and…
Well, this is the tenth edition of The Productive Academic – how time flies! I thought that this would be a good time to briefly review the topics that have been covered so far. If…
In academia, research transformation is a crucial goal for universities seeking to stay at the forefront of knowledge creation. Academic managers, responsible for leading and motivating staff, can face the challenge of dealing with disengaged…
To an outsider it might seem crazy, but it is common for university academic faculty to keep their research separate from their teaching activities. This separation is becoming increasingly reinforced by universities, who are responding…
Academic faculty are increasingly expected to produce high quality research outputs at a significant volume. Publishing research results is vital for successful careers in academia. But as many faculty know, academic journals with excellent reputations…
Academic departments and their faculty are assumed to be innovative. In an environment where students are constantly learning and research activity is externally funded, innovation is expected. Such an environment actively seeks out change to…
Contemporary faculty have considerable workloads, especially those employed in teaching intensive universities. Institutional strategies often include Performance Indicators such as quality of student experience, volume of income generation and quality of research outputs. These performance…
Learning and managing academic and research staff in universities can be challenging. “Herding cats” is a common description of the role. But what if you need staff to change how they work? What if there…
Writing academic articles is time-consuming. Let’s see how we can guarantee that an article is rejected by a journal publisher. As an academic it’s important to build a solid track record of high-quality journal publications….