Advice from the professors in a university Social Sciences department on the teaching-research nexus

Abstract

This article reports on a small-scale interview study of all the professors in one social sciences department in a university in England. The study asks for advice on how academic teaching staff can best develop their research activity whilst effectively fulfilling their teaching position. The findings identify five strands of advice for developing research: teach as part of your research activity; use your research when planning lectures; be a flexible researcher and adapt your research interests to available opportunities; proactively promote yourself and your research; and engage in research as a collective activity. Such advice comments on the possible relationships between teaching and research. The data are also considered in terms of a Bourdieu analytic framework, where the importance of building research capital and creating a research habitus is emphasised in order to succeed in what is an increasingly competitive research environment.

Keywords:

• teaching-research nexus
• professor
• Bourdieu
• new lecturers