Exploring Strategies for Linking Research and Teaching

Abstract

The research-teaching nexus has emerged as an institutional vector of significance for Australian universities at the intersection of concerns about both teaching quality and research productivity. What are the implications of closer linkages between research and teaching for built environment education? This paper reports the outcomes of an exploratory project into the research-teaching nexus in Australia. Parallel forums were convened in comparable built environment faculties on either side of the continent. After canvassing some general contextual issues, providing relevant institutional context, and reporting on the process followed in convening these forums, the paper identifies and discusses the issues raised. The workshops were the first of their kind in Australian built environment education.

Keywords:

• Australia
• Research-Teaching Nexus
• Staff Workshops
• Strategies for Enhancement

Introduction

In the Higher Education Supplement of the national newspaper The Australian on 19 February 2003, an angry correspondent commented on a new initiative to boost research outcomes. “Research driven careerists sell out students on stairway to heaven” was the heading and the writer bemoaned that “every upwards step on the career staircase will now be a research grant or publication, and every step in the opposite direction will be an undergraduate student”. The reaction was a forceful expression of a deep-seated tension between research and teaching commitments among many Australian academics. It is a breach exacerbated by institutional funding policies constrained into traditional “research” and “teaching” silos and reinforced by academic governance structures. Re-prioritizing to teaching and quality assurance alone is one counter, but insufficient in itself. Enhancing the linkages between research and teaching constitutes a middle ground between “publish or perish” and “teach or impeach” which may offer organisational, professional and personal benefits (Hattie and Marsh, 1996). The best practice guidelines of the Oxford Brookes LINK project stress the significance of this third way: “The rationale, importance, purpose and value of enhancing linkage between teaching and research is one of the key developmental challenges facing higher education today” (http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/planning/LTRC/guidelines/section1.htm).

The role of government in shaping research and teaching is crucial, especially in highly centralised tertiary education systems (Jenkins et al., 2003). Current thinking in Australian higher education policy also stands to encourage what Neumann (1994) first described as the “teaching-research nexus”. While current moves to concentrate research funding may yet see his position shifted, the National Minister for Education, Science and Training has previously eschewed the stratification of universities into highly specialised research or teaching only tiers:

The strength of the Australian higher education sector will depend on fostering an environment of excellence in the full range of activities undertaken by institutions. Although teaching is recognised as a core activity of all higher education institutions, current Commonwealth funding, internal staff promotion practices and institutional prestige tend to reinforce the importance of research rather than teaching performance. Rewards and incentives for excellence in learning and teaching will promote the overall quality of the sector. Excellence in learning and teaching will be placed alongside the delivery of research excellence as a valued contribution to Australia’s knowledge systems. There is no intention for any Australian university to become “teaching only”. An increased focus on learning and teaching will foster diversity and help to ensure the ongoing high quality of the Australian higher education sector

(Nelson, 2003, 28).

This statement sketches the emergence of a positive milieu for higher level support to promote such linkages and flags an issue of interest for the Commonwealth’s institutional auditor, the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AQUA).

Where does built environment education stand in relation to this shifting national context? Built environment education offers a distinctive set of circumstances for exploring the research-teaching nexus. Belying external perceptions, they are usually heterogeneous constellations of disciplines in various configurations — typically architecture, landscape architecture, fine arts, urban planning, construction, and design studies. These groupings (quantitatively dominated by architects) tend to be rather small in university terms, their research quantum respectable but usually below the pace set by more research-intensive disciplines like medicine and engineering, their teaching performance variable, and their linkages to practice rich but frequently diffuse. What is the nexus between research and teaching in this realm? How is it addressed by current learning strategies? How do students acquire research skills? How do staff progress scholarly objectives through pedagogic research? How do they juggle and interrelate their research and teaching duties? What particularistic issues are raised in the built environment professions? What new ideas can we tap to better promote quality teaching and research quantum?

These were some of the questions which animated the exploratory investigation reported here, the first of its kind within built environment education in Australia and novel in its integration of the experiences of two different universities. Stimulated by the LINK initiative, and motivated by heightening awareness of existing and potential connections, the primary purpose was to undertake through staff forums stocktakes of relevant issues, constraints, challenges, and practical opportunities. The two settings are the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the Faculty of Built Environment, Art and Design at Curtin University of Technology in Perth. This paper summarises the organisation, outcomes and implications of these two forums. It begins by briefly reviewing key issues in the debate and then describing the institutional context for the respective forums.

An Orientation to the Research-Teaching Nexus

A formidable international literature has emerged on the interplay between academic research and student learning, the advantages and disadvantages of nurturing the bonds between them, and the mechanisms and constraints to strengthening these links (Jenkins et al., 2003). There is an established discourse of correlational studies seeking relationships between proxy measures of research activity and teaching quality, usually to discover a negligible statistical association (Marsh and Hattie, 2002). While rigorous on their own terms, such investigations do little justice to the complexity and changing meanings of research and teaching institutionally within the tertiary environment (Brew, 1999). Research-teaching linkages may remain “troubled” at a sub-institutional level (Bailey, 2003).

A critical indicator of the emergence of research-teaching links as a central issue in Australian higher education was the national tri-university study Strengthening the Nexus Between Teaching and Research (Zubrick et al., 2002). The study consolidated numerous arguments for the positive benefits of strengthening the nexus:

• To reassess and redefine the roles of teachers and students in the development of a culture of critical inquiry;

• To retain status within an increasingly competitive and globalised higher education sector;

• To value and appropriately reward the diversity of academic work;

• To improve the quality of both university teaching and research;

• To raise the status of teaching vis a vis research;

• To strengthen collegial ties within institutions and to reduce the tension between disciplinary and institutional loyalties.

The study documented best practice examples of the nexus in undergraduate curricula, highlighted the instrumental value of pedagogic research, identified factors which both constrained and strengthened the nexus, and concluded overall that “institutions, their staff and students can all benefit when scholarly teaching and research are recognized and rewarded within a unifying framework that enables these two aspects of a community of learning to work as warp and weft” (Zubrick et al., 2002, p. xii).

The positive benefits of research-based, -informed and -led teaching range from enhancement of the learning experience to greater employability. Lindsay et al., (2002) report an overall positive association between student satisfaction and research activity on several indicators including credibility enhancement, relevance, and motivation. Marsh and Hattie (2002, p. 604) distill the case for research-rich teaching strategies in these terms:

There is a strong rationale reinforcing the claims that research should contribute to teaching. Research forms the basis of the content of teaching. Teachers who are active researchers are more likely to be on the cutting edge of their discipline and aware of international perspectives in their field. Because textbooks may not be current in many rapidly developing areas, lectures may be the first point of contact with the latest developments. Teachers who are involved in research are more likely to be at the forefront of their discipline. Results from one’s research can be used to clarify, update, and amend the teaching of a topic. Research enhances teaching through the introduction of new topics and methodologies. Teachers discussing their own research provide a sense of excitement about the results and how they fit into a larger picture. Active researchers are more effective at instilling an actively critical approach to understanding complex research findings rather [than] a passive acceptance of facts. Students appreciate teachers who present research that the teachers have actually conducted. This provides an authenticity to the presented material that differs from presentations by teachers who are only discussing the work of others in which they have no active involvement.

Zetter (2002a) underlines the reciprocal value of teaching-informed research in stimulating better communication of research findings, new insights, and research proposals. Again, Marsh and Hattie (2002, p. 604) nicely summarise this bi-directionality:

Similarly, teaching should contribute to research. The process of teaching the subject matter of a discipline forces academics to clarify the big picture into which their specific research specialization fits. Preparation of teaching materials can elucidate gaps in the academic’s knowledge. Sharing the results of one’s research with students in a teaching context helps researchers clarify their research. Students’ suggestions, comments, questions, and criticisms can elucidate new research directions. Sharing the results of one’s research efforts with an appreciative audience provides reinforcement for having done the research and pursuing further research.

The pathways toward a more seamless integration of research and teaching are strewn with impediments. Zubrick et al. (2002) highlight critical institutional obstacles, including:

• Organizational separation of research and teaching;

• Tacit acceptance of a research-teaching dichotomy;

• Problems with devising evaluation and reward systems for all-round academic performance;

• Rewarding quantity rather than quality in research.

Research and teaching duties — tuned to different temporal rhythms to begin with (Bailey, 2003) - frequently collide, with the latter suffering. Junior or part-time staff are assigned to large and first year classes, teaching buyouts by senior staff are negotiated, student needs de-prioritised, and substantive feedback on assignments evaporates. Lecturers can become less accessible and when forced into the classroom may impart highly specialized content “to the detriment of the intended course curriculum” (Marsh and Hattie, 2002, p. 610). The result can be to over-emphasise detail, subtleties and advanced theoretical constructs when the students’ primary need is “to comprehend more basic patterns” (Hambrick, 1997, p. 253).

Zetter (2002b) reminds us that productive research-teaching links do not happen automatically: “they have to be created planned and structured in a systematic way from curriculum design, through staffing strategies, up to a strategic planning level”. Relevant support and change strategies thus span the spectrum from the highest institutional level (mission statements, performance indicators, professional development, reward and promotion systems) through faculties, schools and departments (governance, audits, implementation of progressive policies, monitoring workload, mentoring, teaching and learning strategies, promoting staff research, curriculum reform) to the individual/team teaching scale (curriculum design, pedagogic research, teaching techniques).

There appear to be specific issues impinging on the research-teaching nexus within the built environment education. One is professional accreditation. While obviously depending on the rigidity of requirements, professional accreditation processes may encourage more contentdriven learning and prescriptive “competency standards” rather than inquiry-based approaches (Zetter, 2002b). Second and interrelatedly is the quality and orientation of built environment students. The entry standards into Australian universities vary according to the discipline but overall tend to be lower than for glamour professions like medicine and law. Questions have been asked about the general responsiveness of such undergraduates to research-driven teaching, especially when a major priority is vocational placement. Third, built environment academics are frequently engaged in consultant work for private, public and NGO clients. These direct engagements with practice may be positive for student learning on a prima facie basis but raise issues about the nature of the research being undertaken, the intellectual constraints of its client-driven basis, and ethical concerns when students are involved in the work. While it may seem unhelpfully reductionist, the question of just what constitutes “research” can be a key issue (Bailey, 2003), especially in disciplines where design and studio work are central.

Institutional Context

Built environment faculties at the University of New South Wales and Curtin University of Technology were the settings for exploring how some of these issues are perceived and play out in reality. Some scene-setting background is required.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney and Curtin University of Technology (Curtin) in Perth are two of Australia’s largest international universities. Originating as a technological institution in the late 1940s, UNSW is now one of Australia’s leading “Group of Eight” (Go8) leading universities. Formerly known as the Western Australian Institute of Technology, Curtin became a university in 1987 and is now one of Australia’s five Technology Network (ATN) Universities, a grouping of leading technological universities. Both are large institutions with a significant undergraduate student base. UNSW has approximately 40,000 students and 5000 academic and general staff. With a reputation for quality research, particularly in the physical sciences, it comprises several major academic units on different campuses with eight traditional faculties: Arts and Social Sciences, Commerce and Economics, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Science, Fine Arts, and Built Environment. Curtin is Western Australia’s largest university with around 25,000 students studying at its Perth campus and another 7000 offshore at partner institutions in Asia and employs around 4000 academic and general staff. The University has 5 divisions: Business, Engineering and Science, Health Sciences, Resources and Humanities.

UNSW’s Faculty of Architecture became the Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE) in 1993 to better represent the diverse disciplines incorporated. A 1998 restructuring abolished autonomous schools in favour of programs embedded within a unitary management structure. There are currently seven undergraduate programs: Architecture, Architecture (Science) Computing, Building Construction Management, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Planning and Urban Development. In addition, there are several coursework masters degrees - Construction Management, Facilities Management, Industrial Design, Property, Urban Development and Design, and Sustainable Development — plus research degrees. The FBE has approximately 2200 students and 60 fulltime academic staff.

Curtin’s Faculty of Built Environment Art and Design (BEAD) is one of the University’s largest faculties. It was formed in a 2002 restructuring that saw the Schools of Architecture Construction and Planning, Art and Design amalgamated into a faculty comprising the Departments of Architecture/Interior Architecture, Art, Construction Management, Design and Urban and Regional Planning. BEAD is one of three faculties in the Division of Humanities and has a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate research and course work programs in Urban and Regional Planning, Urban Design, Construction Management, Project Management, Art and Design. There are 65 full and part time academic staff, who also service offshore programs, and 1600 students at Perth. Courses in Architecture, Building/Construction and Planning at both Universities are regularly accredited by professional organisations. In 2002, students deemed the respective planning programs at Curtin and UNSW as the best in Australia.

Research activity tends to be skewed to a relatively small number of staff. In response, both faculties have committed significant resources to research in recent years. At UNSW several ‘research groups’ constitute clusters for staff and research student discussion, collaborative research and cooperative grant applications. There are also research centres for sustainable built environment, health assets, and city futures, the latter growing out of participation in the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) consortium. At Curtin, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning plays significant roles in the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, the Western Australian node of AHURI, the Planning and Transport Research Centre (PaTReC), and the new Urban Design Centre for Western Australia.

The nexus between research and teaching is explicitly recognised in mission statements by both UNSW and Curtin, although capacity and implementation constraints are evident. A key goal within the UNSW Operational Plan is to “strengthen links between teaching and research so that undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students are exposed to research paradigms”. Three strategies are specified:

• Establish guidelines and mechanisms to achieve improved links between teaching and research;

• Restructure teaching programs as appropriate to expose students to research paradigms;

• Develop strategies for greater involvement of research students in teaching.

Curtin has an explicit commitment to the research-teaching nexus that is embedded in one of the University’s goals: “The Curtin community is united by a commitment to scholarship that embraces teaching and research as complementary and interlinked”.

Linkages between research and teaching are not explicitly flagged in the respective faculty corporate plans. Essential administrative, funding and committee structures assume a traditional breakdown between research and teaching functions on the one hand, and undergraduate and postgraduate instruction on the other. Policies and initiatives to support research are most in evidence while pro-active commitment to quality teaching standards has been slower to develop. Increased staff involvement in new research initiatives is invariably achieved through diminished teaching responsibilities, another recognised impediment to achieving a research-teaching nexus (Zubrick et al., 2002).

Methodology

The general objective in this project was to achieve recognition of research-teaching links as an important dimension of built environment education and to subsequently generate discussion, understanding and enthusiasm for more coordinated pursuit of the nexus. The specific aims were to:

• develop a shared understanding of the ways the relationship between teaching and research can be expressed in the built environment disciplines;

• identify and share the particular ways in which the relationship is expressed currently in programs and courses;

• consider the benefits for both academics and students in making this relationship explicit and building it into the curricula;

• share ways in which this relationship is explicitly expressed in the curricula and thus in the students’ learning experience;

• identify challenges in linking student learning and research and consider how to address these;

• agree on strategies that can strengthen the relationship in terms of the individual academic, teaching team, program level and School and Faculty level.

At both UNSW and Curtin critical early support was secured from units within the university dedicated to pedagogic initiatives: the UNSW Office of Learning and Teaching and Curtin’s Centre for Educational Advancement. To a large extent, the interest and support of these units reflected the timeliness of the joint venture as a catalyst for wider university action. Experienced independent facilitators were engaged to run the two workshops which were the main device for recovering opinions and attitudes. The methodology was kept as uniform as possible but aligned to the distinctive faculty structures in each university. No professional literature was pre-circulated in order to maximise the spontaneity of outcomes, but email surveys of academic staff assisted in the identification of issues to be discussed. Staff were invited to nominate what they thought were key questions or issues about linking teaching with research and consultancy in their discipline areas, asked for responses on what they did individually to link research with teaching and consultancy, and surveyed for contributions to pedagogic research.

Facilitated workshops are a conventional device for stimulating ideas and discussions within an overall structure establishing foci and some measure of consistency across small groups (Wooding and Grant, 2003). The representativeness of the results depends on many factors including the size and composition of working groups and the modes of facilitation. Of more importance in this case was their veracity of core opinions and attitudes which proved remarkably consistent between the universities. Views of the various informal working groups constituted during the two half-day workshops were reported back orally by nominated rapporteurs and this formed a platform for plenary discussions. Designated scribes provided a detailed record which formed the basis for data analysis.

The UNSW built environment workshop was held on the morning of 16 May 2003, complementing a similar exercise by the Science Faculty the same afternoon. A detailed resource kit was assembled for all 30 participants who represented all the teaching programs in the FBE. An opening address captured the increasing importance being attached to the relationship between teaching and research. Several short staff presentations translated broader issues into the milieu of the FBE, covering e-learning, action research, design studios, undergraduate theses, and research training. Participants then broke into parallel groups to consider three questions:

• How can we facilitate student understanding of the role, methods, and value of research in the fields of study within FBE?

• How do we negotiate teaching-research connections and how can our students’ learning experience benefit from UNSW being a research-based university?

• How can curriculum design and delivery, learning and teaching materials, and approaches to learning, teaching and assessment draw on the research/teaching nexus?

The Curtin workshop on 14 May 2003 was set up through an invitation accompanying the distribution of a pre-workshop questionnaire, although other stakeholders were also encouraged to attend. There were 22 participants. Three questions were posed for small group discussion relating to the nature of academic work, staff visions of research and teaching, and the ways in which research and teaching could be seen as complementary activities. The latter question was aimed at addressing ways to better develop links between teaching, research and consultancy. The tone set at the start of both the Perth and Sydney workshops was of open value-adding exercises aimed at sharing and producing practical advice and suggestions.

Findings

Both workshops produced a wide array of comments, observations, questions, and ideas. They proved valuable social opportunities for colleagues to share experiences and learn about best practice and experimental teaching methods already in place. The contrasting institutional settings saw very specific concerns surface and different emphases being attached to some common issues but overall there was a strong convergence of opinion. Academics in both built environment faculties perceive a divide between research and teaching, which most recognise as their core activity. They recognised the constraints hindering a closer integration but also agreed on potential pathways for future action. Seven of the most forward-looking sets of ideas articulated in various ways at both workshops are identified and discussed below. Some of the finer grain of discussion is lost in this summary, but the ideas generated in, what Jenkins et al. (2003, p. 124) would call, “blissful ignorance of the research evidence”, do connect with broader strategies canvassed in the literature:

1. Heighten research awareness amongst students in early years through exposure to research processes and outcomes as well as cross-year contacts between junior and research-active students;

2. Encourage cross program (multidisciplinary) experiences;

3. Train students for research;

4. Promote teaching and curriculum development approaches that diffuse and develop research training, harness a critical approach to learning through pedagogic research, and integrate student involvement in funded research;

5. Value and disseminate student work;

6. Involve students in research/practice/consultancy/community service and as research assistants;

7. Encourage the humanism and dynamism of research-inflected teaching.

Bringing research into junior years

In both faculties, exposure to research is largely reserved for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students. The failure to more energetically and systematically introduce students to research from the first year is a lost opportunity for students enrolled in research rich universities and an impediment to student progression to postgraduate degrees, a finding consistent with other studies (Bauer and Bennett, 2003; Zamorski, 2002). Provision of an authentic research experience at the undergraduate level was a major recommendation of Reinventing Undergraduate Education (1998), the report of the US Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. Suggested remedies brought up in the Australian workshops included:

• highlighting research endeavour in student recruitment;

• sharing the spirit, reward and exhilaration of research early in programs;

• targeting research skills from the commencement of undergraduate degrees;

• exposing students in early years of their programs to experienced research staff who, all too often, teach only senior and postgraduate students or buy out of teaching;

• having senior undergraduate students share their experiences with students in the early years of their degrees;

• encouraging undergraduate student interaction with research students;

• inculcating in students the understanding that research is also part of professional life.

Cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary experiences

Synergies were perceived between applied research and professional practice in built environment education. Building on the belief that research and praxis are closely correlated if not inseparable, plus the overriding commitment to produce competent practitioners, students could be involved more in multidisciplinary research projects that emulate professional practice. Carefully conceived and targeted faculty-wide research focused electives are a potential device for introducing multidisciplinary research.

Research training

An orientation to research should ideally permeate all courses and not just be confined to discrete methods courses, particularly when these are replicated across programs within the same faculty. This view echoes the wider literature: strategies to develop students’ progressive understanding and experience of research as well as their ability to carry it out require a more thoroughgoing engagement with the entire curriculum (Jenkins, 2001; Jenkins et al., 2003). At the postgraduate level where research methodology courses retain validity for new students, inter-faculty and university-wide units might be introduced to realise economies of scale and advance the ideal of sharing knowledge in a more genuine “learning community” environment.

Teaching strategies

Staff recognised that the curriculum is a primary tool for strengthening the research-teaching nexus. There are numerous mechanisms for fostering the nexus through specific teaching and learning strategies (Jenkins et al., 2003). Suggestions which surfaced in the workshops included:

• critical thinking, evaluation, judgement and decision-making exercises;

• reinforcing the notion that existing knowledge needs to be “interrogated” and not just passively accepted;

• encouraging senior students to write publishable essays that invoke new research;

• introducing students to the processes of refereed publication and peer review;

• developing opportunities for applied research through university-community linkages;

• challenging students by exposing them to work in unfamiliar environments that require adaptation of skills learned in more familiar settings;

• exposing students to staff research results and challenging them to inquiry;

• engaging students in the development and response to study briefs;

• emphasising problem based learning;

• involving students in testing research outcomes;

• including critical analysis in assessment criteria;

• involving students in active learning processes.

Pursuit and evaluation of such strategies require a real engagement with pedagogy and a reflexive “scholarship of teaching” (Boyer, 1990). Preparations for the workshops, and presentations and commentaries by staff on the day, tapped a significant strain of almost “hidden” pedagogic research in both faculties that exemplifies the research-teaching nexus and must be sustained to ensure achievement of quality learning outcomes.

Student research

Students in both faculties undertake major research projects during their final year of study. Their work rarely receives broader professional and community recognition. Findings that are disseminated usually relate to the best final year undergraduate or postgraduate dissertations which occasionally win professional awards for scholarship. Staff recognise the need to value student research more widely and the following means to promote greater dissemination were suggested:

• organising student presentations of their work;

• involving students and staff in research presentations;

• developing a web-based student research journal;

• encouraging students to publish their work in professional/academic journals.

Staff-student project collaborations

Academic staff foresee possibilities to extend staff-student collaborative opportunities in their research, consultancies and community service. Reflecting the findings of Zubrick et al. (2002), they believe that both they and students may benefit from aligning learning opportunities to existing and emerging staff research interests. Possibilities for cooperative and joint ventures include:

• employing students as research assistants on staff research projects;

• involving students in consultancies under staff supervision;

• integrating grant funded research projects into the curriculum to enable student involvement in high profile research (perhaps working through new faculty-based research institutes/centres);

• treating work experience as action research to strengthen the link between research and professional practice.

Individuality and dynamism of research-inflected teaching

Staff felt that enthusiasm for research and the capacity to relay research experiences are important ingredients in promoting research to students and fostering the research-teaching nexus. They argued that students respond well to personal and first hand perspectives - they appreciate staff exposing their individual identity and learning experiences through research-led teaching. Teachers should transmit their own experiences of success and failure to demystify research and demonstrate how real-world inquiry strategies evolve.

Discussion

A dominant impression gained from these workshops was that built environment educators were very committed to delivering a quality professional education and keen to explore alternative time- and cost-effective ways to do it. Many defined research as a critically reflective practice that leads to better outcomes for communities and professions. One group in the Curtin workshop commented: “We want to be part of a creative team in a research and learning environment that has demonstrable outcomes in its successful graduates and successful contributions to the culture in which we live”.

On the other hand, there was frank recognition that certain blockages and constraints presently inhibit the creative exploitation of the research-teaching nexus in pursuit of these outcomes. There were no illusions about a seamless transition to a higher plane of integration. Most of the ideas suggested above are achievable, with successful outcomes already on show. But there appear to be structural impediments in both faculties. At UNSW workshop participants identified impediments to change in the limited number of research active staff and the intensive effort required to conceive and implement new initiatives on top of already high workloads — a not unfamiliar story (Zubrick et al., 2002).

Both faculties administer professionally accredited courses and staff clearly value connections with professional practice although it could be argued that professional accreditation processes can promote curriculum content “creep” and constrain more creative exploration of research and public interest issues. Both faculties also draw on practitioners for part time staff who are not necessarily sensitive to critical enquiry. Furthermore, many tenured academics have joined academia from professional practice and continue to work in their earlier professional domain through applied research and consultancy. While continued engagement with professions may inhibit creativity and critical analysis, at the same time it is also a vehicle for research opportunities amongst staff and involvement by students. Applied research in the built environment realm is “rarely too complicated for undergraduates to understand” (Webster 2002, p. 15).

A key issue which surfaced in Perth and Sydney was the fundamental issue of unambiguously defining and therefore better interrelating “research”, “practice” and “consultancy”. At Curtin, many considered “practice” and “research” to be synonymous and some staff were involved in action research that revolved around their consultancy and community service work. At UNSW this same debate crystallised around the idea of progressing “design” as research, both in terms of background investigation and documentation required plus recognition of excellence in outcomes. However, Commonwealth Government research funding formulae mean that universities unevenly reward “creative” research and consultancy is earmarked as a source of income rather than applied enquiry. The issue of consultancy as research appears to have been largely bypassed or treated cavalierly in the literature — Jenkins et al. (2003) make no reference to it - but it deserves much more scrutiny given the importance of applied research and nurturing industry-academic links in the built environment. In fact, consultancy may provide a key interface between teaching and research provided issues of confidentiality, intellectual property rights and the appropriate nature and remuneration of student involvement can be resolved. The prospect opened up was a broader triangulation of research, teaching and practice (Freestone, 2004).

Conclusion

The compelling ideal of the modern university outlined in Reinventing Undergraduate Education (Boyer Commission, 1998) is based on the ecological idea that a university is a scholarly organism committed to inquiry, investigation, and discovery at all levels with an embedded symbiotic relationship between teaching and research. Built environment education at Curtin and UNSW is already edging toward an understanding of this symbiosis. The workshops described in this paper are seen as catalysts toward a greater awareness of the rationale of, and the coordination of approaches to, symbiosis as will be demanded by funding bodies and quality assurance audits in Australian higher education. They were an invaluable first step in heightening appreciation of the value in cultivating a pluralistic research-teaching nexus in the interests of student and staff learning.

The workshops tapped into issues which go to the heart of academic enterprise: modes of learning, staff-student relationships, workloads, time management, research agendas, resource support, career planning, faculty and university governance. A more explicit recognition of the research-teaching nexus may actually provide better ways of mediating the inherent time and resource conflicts involved. UNSW has produced a summary volume of the Built Environment and Science forums (Freestone et al., 2003) as a springboard to further initiatives. The FBE has subsequently explored introducing a final year multidisciplinary capstone research elective and has implemented a small grant program to link interested undergraduates with experienced faculty researchers on nominated projects. More sustained outcomes will require leadership, championing, and mentoring within a new matrix of roles and responsibilities more conducive to facilitating an enduring research-teaching nexus.

While progress will likely devolve to individual and small group initiatives, faculty and university support is clearly required to achieve the goals both universities applaud and progress the good ideas generated in the workshops if a truly effective and sustainable integration of research and teaching is to be attained. Jenkins et al., (2003) provide a veritable sourcebook of ideas organised hierarchically around the various decision-making, resource-allocation, and policy-setting strata in the higher education field. Vital considerations which surfaced during the Australian workshops included:

• acknowledgement that the research-teaching nexus assumes various forms, expressed both directly and indirectly, and measurable in specific and subtle ways

• the facilitation of better communication and cooperation between and within faculty professional programs and at a broader scale between faculties;

• workload incentives to encourage higher research productivity and teaching innovation;

• recognition of research-teaching initiatives in promotion criteria;

• broadening of university classifications of research beyond publication to creative production and design.

In the interim, we have this positive distillation of the UNSW experiment applying equally well to the Curtin experience on the other side of the continent:

The central message was the vital importance for all us, working in a research-intensive university, to excite our students, at all stages in their programs (undergraduate and postgraduate), with the idea and practice of scholarship and research. Students need to see us as active scholars and to thus become aware that knowledge is being produced, modified and discarded in a constant creative process. Not only will this help them to understand the wider purposes of a major university it will also feed back to us in the form of more research students

(FBE Acting Dean, Peter Murphy, in email to academic staff on 19 May 2003).

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the International ‘Building the Link’ Conference on Integrating Teaching with Research and Practice in the Built Environment, Wadham College, Oxford, 8–10 September 2003. Rob Freestone thanks Professor Adrian Lee (former Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education at UNSW) and Michele Scoufis, Catherine Pratt and Stephanie Wilson of UNSW’s Centre for Learning and Teaching, and Professor Craig McInnis, Director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education, for their critical inputs into supporting, organising and documenting the UNSW workshop. David Wood thanks Dr Ernie Stringer for facilitation of the Curtin workshop plus his colleagues who collectively won the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award which funded the Curtin workshop and contributed towards his attendance at the Oxford Conference. The comments of two JEBE anonymous referees are also appreciated.