Role requirements in Academic Recruitment for Construction & Engineering

Pilcher, Nick; Galbrun, Laurent; Craig, Nigel; Murray, Mike; Forster, Alan; Tennant, Stuart

Abstract

Two ongoing and recurrent debates in the employment of academic staff are (1) how much industry experience should faculty staff have? and (2) what priority is given to research, teaching or both? Such debates take place worldwide and are particularly relevant to vocational subject areas. Through a statistical analysis of circa 200 job adverts for lecturer/assistant professor, senior lecturer/associate professor, and professor/full professor positions in Construction and Engineering posts in the UK, this paper investigates the essential and desirable attributes required for ‘research’, ‘teaching’ and ‘overall requirements’. Analysis shows institutions unmistakably focus on, and coherently recruit for research, but demonstrate very little reasoned approach to recruiting for teaching. Indeed, findings identify ‘administration’ as the key teaching priority. Further empirical analysis demonstrates no significant difference in recruitment strategy before and after the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, despite its aim to put teaching excellence to the fore.

Citation

Pilcher, N., Galbrun, L., Craig, N., Murray, M., Forster, A., & Tennant, S. (2021). Role requirements in Academic Recruitment for Construction & Engineering. European Journal of Engineering Education, 46(2), 247-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2020.1725451

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 30, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Feb 12, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 31, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 13, 2021
• Print ISSN: 0304-3797
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-5898
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 247-265
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2020.1725451
• Keywords: Construction and Engineering; Recruitment; Research; Teaching; Employment Attributes
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2522078