Lessons and lacunae? Practitioners’ suggestions for developing research-rich teaching and learning: Angles on innovation and change

Abstract

This article explores a universal issue in higher education: how in practice can we secure the most productive relationships between the research universities pursue and the education they provide? It opens by drawing from three recent international literature reviews summarising research on research-teaching links, sometimes termed a ‘nexus’. It then proceeds inductively to analyse grounded empirical data from practitioners in an English post-1992 University. This data describes what participants think should change and where, to increase its amount and quality. To illuminate how things might change, the same data is then re-analysed deductively against six ‘lessons learnt’ from a 2012 review of literature examining the diffusion of innovative teaching and learning in higher education. Lessons are confirmed or lacunae pointed out, before the concluding discussion offers recommendations and observations for universities pursuing research-rich education.

Keywords:

• Research-teaching links
• curriculum, learning and staff development
• change management
• innovation
• literature review
• leadership and management