PEDAGOGISK FORSKNING I UPPSALA 161
JUNI 2012
Ulla R iis
Is the bar quivering?
What can we learn about academic
career requirements from the 1999
promotion reform?
Institutionen för pedagogik, didaktik
och utbildningsstudier
Box 2136
750 02 Uppsala
ISBN 978-91-506-2292-8
ISSN 0348-3630
Foreword
On 15 December 2011 the Board of Uppsala University adopted new
appointment regulations, and under these rules it is possible for an individual
senior lecturer to be promoted to professor as of 1 January 2012: “A senior
lecturer … must be promoted to professor if he or she … is qualified for such a
post, and moreover has been deemed suitable on the basis of the specific criteria
established by the respective domain/faculty board”.
During the autumn of 2011, at the behest of the Vice-Chancellor, a study was
carried out about how the 1999 promotion reform has played out at Uppsala
University in the twelve years since promotion was nationally regulated in the
Higher Education Ordinance. The investigation addressed a number of questions
that have been discussed throughout the twelve-year period that senior lecturers
have been able to invoke the Higher Education Ordinance to apply for a
promotion: Would the competence of promoted internally promoted professors
equal that of chair-holding professors? Would the level of competence among
promoted professors decline with time? Would promoted professors come to
replace chair-holding professors? Would mobility in academia come to decrease
from an already low level?
The main report from the project was published in December 2011: Darr på
ribban? En uppföljning av 1999 års befordringsreform vid Uppsala universitet [Is
the Bar Quivering? A Follow-up of the 1999 Promotion Reform at Uppsala
University] by Ulla Riis, Thérèse Hartman & Sara Levander. The present paper is
a summary of the complete report in Swedish. The latter can be downloaded via
the following link:
http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:463861
The prime purpose of the present paper is to stimulate discussion within
various faculties and to provide support for the thinking and actions of at least six
target groups: senior lecturers thinking about applying for promotion, doctoral
candidates wanting to know more about the building blocks of the academic
career, heads of departments and deans with direct or indirect personnel
responsibilities, decision-makers and investigators in promotion and appointment
matters, senior professors wishing to support younger colleagues in their
academic career, and experts from other universities in Sweden and from abroad.
The translation into English is done by Ph. D. Donald MacQueen.
Ulla Riis
i
ii
Contents
FOREWORD ............................................................................................ I
BACKGROUND, PURPOSE, AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY ..........................................1
THE PROMOTION REFORM AT UPPSALA UNIVERSITY 1999-2010 IN SOME FIGURES .........2
ELIGIBILITY AND ASSESSMENT CRITERIA, QUALIFICATIONS AND COMPETENCE ...............3
PROMOTION AS A QUALIFICATION MARKER .......................................................5
BRIEF REMARKS ABOUT METHODOLOGY ...........................................................6
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ...............................................................................7
Academic qualifications ..........................................................................7
Teaching qualifications ...........................................................................8
Collaboration .................................................................................... 10
The trust of the academic community ...................................................... 10
Leadership and responsibility for joint operations ........................................ 10
Mobility ........................................................................................... 10
Research funding ................................................................................ 11
Women and men................................................................................ 11
Other findings regarding applicants ......................................................... 11
The role of experts and their statements ................................................... 12
Developments in the number of professors ................................................ 12
INDEXES, WEIGHTING, AND JUSTIFICATION OF WEIGHTING................................... 12
Index Academic Qualifications ............................................................... 13
Index Teaching Experience, Index Supervision, and Index Reflection on Teaching
Issues .............................................................................................. 20
Analysis and discussion ......................................................................... 24
The importance of academic qualifications for promotion over time ................. 24
The importance of academic qualifications for promotion in different disciplinary
domains, faculties, and sections .............................................................. 27
A guide to applying the investigative model at the individual level .................... 28
The importance of teaching qualifications for promotion over time .................. 30
Teaching qualifications across disciplinary domains ...................................... 31
The importance of gender in the promotion process .................................... 33
Attention paid to assessing teaching qualifications and balance in describing and
evaluating teaching and academic qualifications ........................................... 34
Experts and their statements.................................................................. 36
Collaboration with the wider community .................................................. 37
The importance of some auxiliary qualifications .......................................... 37
NEED FOR FURTHER KNOWLEDGE ................................................................ 40
REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 41
iii
iv
Background, purpose, and design of the study
In the autumn of 2011, together with my associates Thérèse Hartman and Sara
Levander, I presented the results of a follow-up of the 1999 promotion reform.1
This reform entailed that a senior lecturer had an unconditional right to apply for
and be promoted to professor if she or he had “qualifications for such a position”. 2
This paper summarizes the main report from that study.
The six target groups – identified in the foreword – have varying experience
and prior knowledge of the field, so a couple of sections will no doubt seem
elementary to a battle-scarred professor or an expert with long experience from
the Swedish system of recruitment and promotion. On the other hand, for many
international experts, a description of the Swedish procedural matters may satisfy
a need for information. The same may be true for a young doctoral candidate
planning to become an academic teacher and researcher. I will be taking up these
issues:
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Some statistics about the promotion reform at Uppsala University 1999–
2010,
Something about the promotion process as such,
The design of the study,
The key results of the study in summary,
Our method for assessing qualifications,
A discussion of the findings,
A number of conclusions for the future.
The full report contains a guide for those wishing to test the relative weight of
their qualifications in relation to the qualifications of those who were promoted at
Uppsala University at some time during years 1999-2010. In this shorter paper an
example is given of how such a comparison can be made (p. 29f). Our method
and our results are concretely exemplified by a number of authentic cases that
may also be illustrative to those wishing to “calibrate” their qualifications.
The purpose of the study was to systematize our knowledge of what is
colloquially referred to as “the bar”: What qualifications have been required for a
senior lecturer to be promoted to professor? Are there differences regarding how
academic and teaching qualifications have been described, judged, and assessed
1
2
See foreword.
See Svensk författningssamling 1998:1003.
1
over time, across faculties and sections, and between women and men? These
purposes hark back to some common concerns before the reform was launched:
Would the level of competence of promoted professors be on a par with that of
professors who were appointed in competition after a public posting? Would
mobility within academia decline from an already low level? Would promoted
professors come to replace professors appointed in competition after a public
posting? During the twelve-year period another concern arose: would the level of
competence among promoted professors decline with time?
Ahead of the reform it was emphasized that the importance of teaching
qualifications would be considered to a greater extent than previously. In the
study we therefore addressed questions regarding the balance in the description,
judgement, and assessment of teaching qualifications and academic qualifications,
respectively.
The study is set up to enable comparisons over time, between the sexes, and
across disciplinary domains, faculties, and sections. A further comparison involves
the care with which academic qualifications and teaching qualifications are treated
in expert statements, in preparatory work, and in decisions.
The promotion reform at Uppsala University
1999-2010 in some figures
For twelve years, 1999-2010, eligible senior lecturers have had the right to be
promoted to the position of professor. As of 1 January 2011 the employer has the
option of promoting senior lecturers to professors. At Uppsala University during
the twelve years some 700 senior lecturers applied for promotion. Of these,
more than 500 were promoted. In the first two years, 1999-2000, 310
applications were submitted. That was 46 per cent of the population of 678
applications on which our investigation is based. In the years that followed, the
number of applications was around 30 per year, with the exception of the last
year in the period, 2010, when the number doubled.
The study is based on 678 applications distributed across the three disciplinary
domains of Humanities and Social Sciences (HS), Medicine and Pharmacy (MP),
and Science and Technology (ST) according to Table 1.
2
Table 1. Number of applications by disciplinary domain and compared with the number of
senior lecturers at Uppsala University in 1998.
Domain
HS
MP
ST
Unknown
Total
# of appl.
244
135
298
1
678
% of appl.
36.0
19.9
44.0
0.1
100.0
% of sen. lect.
UU 1998
44.1
15.5
40.4
-100.0
The table shows that the share of applications from the MP domain and ST
domain is greater than those domains’ respective shares of the University’s senior
lecturer personnel for the year prior to the reform’s taking effect. For the HS
domain, the reverse is the case. In the HS domain, 77 per cent of the applicants
were promoted, in the MP domain ca. 84 per cent, and in the ST domain 70 per
cent (not in table). Some 78 per cent of applications were submitted by men and
22 per cent by women. This reflects rather well the gender distribution among
senior lecturers in 1998, which was 74 and 26 per cent, respectively, but it is
evident that men took advantage of the opportunity somewhat more eagerly than
did women. On the other hand, things went well for the women who did apply:
79 per cent of the women applicants were promoted, compared with 74 per cent
of the men.
Eligibility and assessment criteria, qualifications
and competence
In this connection, the concepts of ‘eligibility’, ‘assessment criterion’,
‘qualifications’, and ‘skills’ are central. Eligibility for employment as a professor,
for instance, is a matter of a threshold level for such an appointment. If several
applicants are competing for a post, a number of assessment criteria are used to
arrive at which of the eligible applicants is the “best”. In promotion cases no
assessment criteria are needed to distinguish between two or more eligible
applicants. (On the other hand, assessment criteria are used in connection with
promotion, though in another way, in the employment regulations that apply at
Uppsala University as of 1 January 2012.)3
3
Uppsala University (2011) Appointment Regulations for Uppsala University. Regulations for Appointing,
Recruiting, and Promoting Teachers. UFV 2010/1842; Ch. 5 Sec. 50. The document is available for download
3
Eligibility regarding appointments at universities and university colleges is
regulated in the Higher Education Ordinance: “A person who has demonstrated
both research and teaching expertise shall be qualified for employment as a
professor” (Ch. 4, Sec. 3).4 This is where the external experts come in. Their
assignment is to assess whether a person applying for promotion has sufficient
academic competence and sufficient teaching competence in the subject area to be
promoted.
The most important evidence for the experts is the written application. It is to
contain a CV including a list of publications. Normally the application also
comprises the applicant’s presentation of his or her various career steps and
experience of research, teaching, collaboration, leadership, and administration as
well as experience showing the academic community’s trust in the individual,
such as assignments as external examiner or as a member of an examination panel.
The experience accounted for in this way constitutes the applicant’s
qualifications. On the basis of these descriptions of qualifications, often
quantitative in nature, the experts are to reach a qualitative assessment of the
applicant’s competence in the various respects. The experts’ formal role is to
serve as advisers to the faculty board and the Vice-Chancellor.
A promotion case is prepared first at the faculty level, initially with the faculty
board appointing some individuals to serve as external experts. They are to be
sought at another higher-education institution. The idea is not only to avoid bias
but also above all to establish what we today call peer review and to maintain a
national standard – in everyday language “the bar”. The experts are expected to
provide a summary of how they perceive the applicant’s qualifications and
competence.
Once the experts’ statements have come in to the faculty board, the board
decides whether or not to propose that the Vice-Chancellor should promote the
applicant. The experts’ statements carry considerable weight here. The faculty
board is to make its own decision, and this decision does not have to be in line
with the opinions of the experts, although this is most often the case. In fact, it
happens rather often, in roughly every sixth case, that the experts reach differing
conclusions. In such situations, if not before, the faculty board more actively takes
a stand in the matter. Often much of the preparatory work is carried out by a
http://regler.uu.se/Detaljsida/?contentId=92570&kategoriId=248 Swedish version: The document is available
Swedish version: The document is available
4
Higher Education Ordinance 2009/10; Svensk författningssamling 1998:1003.
4
body within the faculty boards, such as an appointment committee, a recruitment
group, or a specially instituted committee for promotions.
The Vice-Chancellor is not required to follow the proposal she or he receives,
though the Vice-Chancellor’s decision must not be arbitrary but rather based on
some form of investigation.5 The Vice-Chancellor’s decision must also be justified
in writing in cases where promotion is denied.6 The most common ground for
denial was that the applicant had not been able to document sufficient academic
competence or sufficient teaching competence, that is, sufficient competence in
one of the two criteria, or in both of them, for eligibility for a professorship. It
also occurs that an application is denied because the applicant is not eligible to
apply.
It is thus evident that the procedure for promotion contains multiple parts,
and the question “where is the bar” receives no univocal answer. The bar may be
at a certain level for the experts in the panel, at another level for the preparatory
body, and a third level for the person making the decision, the Vice-Chancellor.
However, in the overwhelming majority of cases there is unity among these
actors.
Promotion as a qualification marker
When an applicant has had her/his application approved, she or he receives a new
position and a new appointment certificate. She or he also receives a certain rise
in pay. She or he is inaugurated at one of the University’s academic ceremonies in
the same way as those appointed professor in competition and following public
posting. These latter professorships are colloquially called chairs, and this name
will be used here, as no other term has been able to replace it in a convenient
way.
The abolition – and preservation – of chairs has been a controversial matter.
Many universities and university colleges – not Uppsala University, however –
have treated all their professors in the same way in terms of salary, employment
conditions, and access to faculty allocations. This has entailed problems – above
all a dilution of faculty allocations – as more and more professors were promoted
– since the reform was not funded. Uppsala University chose to distinguish
between promotion as a qualification marker and appointment of chair-holders as
a central part of the University’s strategic development. Promoted professors at
Uppsala have not had the same proportion of their duties earmarked for research
5
6
Public Authorities Ordinance, Sec. 20; Svensk författningssamling 2007:515.
Administrative Procedure Act, Sec. 20; Svensk författningssamling 1986:223.
5
as chair-holders, although some faculty boards have created some scope for them
in varying degrees. Which in turn has entailed a dilution of faculty allocations also
at Uppsala University.
Brief remarks about methodology
We have analysed a selection of 294 (43 %) of the total of 678 promotion cases.
We were primarily interested in academic qualifications and teaching
qualifications. For these qualifications, we created one weighted index for
academic qualifications and three for teaching qualifications. The method of
weighting and its justification are found on p. 12ff, directly following a summary
presentation of the findings. Our guess is that most people will agree with our
justification for the weighting, but not when it comes to the weights actually
chosen. For instance, is a doctoral dissertation twelve times as weighty as a
departmental report? Should supervision of a doctoral candidate through degree
completion weigh more than an assignment as director of studies? There is room
for discussion and differing opinions here.
We have also studied the applications in regard to collaborative activities,
leadership qualifications, and qualifications testifying to the trust of the academic
community. We have noted whether the applicant has been awarded an academic
or teaching prize, whether they have had external research funding, and, if so,
how much funding. We have tried to capture the applicants’ mobility: Have they
been employed by one or more other higher-education institutions before coming
to Uppsala University, have they worked outside the university sphere, and have
they had stints at foreign universities? Is their doctoral degree and/or their docent
competence from Uppsala University or from some other university? We have
created weighted indexes for leadership, for the trust of the academic
community, and for mobility. Finally, we have registered whether the applicant
has taken parental leave.
We have examined the statements of experts in regard to length (in
centimetres) and structure and to the care they have taken in the description and
evaluation of teaching qualifications compared with academic merits. This is
prompted by a new stringency in the Higher Education Ordinance: it is
emphasized that “as much attention shall be given to the assessment of teaching
6
expertise as to the assessment of research or artistic expertise”.7 In the directives
to the commission preceding the reform this was expressed even more clearly: “.
. . in appointing professors teaching qualifications must be apportioned real
weight”.8
Summary of findings
Academic qualifications
x Publication traditions vary a great deal among disciplinary domains and
among faculties and sections within a disciplinary domain. Therefore, no
meaningful comparisons can be made on the basis of simple frequency
calculations,
x Our index for academic qualifications has allowed comparisons over time,
by gender, among disciplinary domains, faculties/sections, and decisions
in promotion cases,
x Academic qualifications, measured via the index, have a clear impact on
decisions to promote or not in the MP domain, and a somewhat weaker
impact in the HS domain and ST domain,
x Even after the three disciplinary domains’ academic qualifications via index
have been balanced against each other, in each domain there remains
considerable variation among faculties and sections, see also p. 27f,
x There is a statistical positive correlation between academic qualifications
and time between completion of the doctorate and the time of applying for
promotion,
x Immediately following the introduction of the promotion reform a pentup demand was satisfied in the HS domain and the MP domain. It is
probable that there was also a pent-up demand in the ST domain as well.9
The pent-up demand was revealed when a large number of senior lecturers
immediately took advantage of the opportunity to be promoted. Many of
them had previously applied for chairs and had ranked highly but had not
won the appointments,
7
Svensk författningssamling 1998:1003.
SOU 1996:166, p. 116.
9
Half of all cases in the ST domain were purged, all cases from 1999 and 2000, in violation of the Swedish
principles of public access to information and Archives Act.
8
7
x More applicants with relatively good academic qualifications and weak
teaching qualifications were denied promotion than the reverse,
x The bar for academic qualifications has been lowered across the twelve
years under study, though this lowering has been moderate, see Figure 1,
x The maintenance of a standard in the University’s and the ViceChancellor’s decisions has improved over time – the bar more often
remains still,
Mean – Index Academic Qualifications
x We have not investigated where the bar was placed for academic
qualifications for chairs before and during the time of the reform.
Decision
Promotion
Denial
In 2006 no applications were denied.
Figure 1. Index Academic Qualifications over time and decision for promotion and
those whose applications were denied, mean.
Teaching qualifications
x Two of our three indexes for teaching qualifications have functioned well
for various comparisons,
x The importance of teaching qualifications has grown over time. This is
partly due to clear signals from leaders and to better accounting of these
qualifications by applicants,
x In the MP domain and the ST domain supervision of a certain number of
doctoral students has been regularly used as a minimum criterion of
teaching competence, even though the Higher Education Appeals Board
8
has rejected this procedure. National coordination has played a role in this
practice,
x Applicants in the HS domain evince fewer supervision qualifications than
applicants in the other domains,
x In the HS domain there is a tendency over time to apply a quantitative
supervision criterion to a greater extent,
x Qualifications related to reflection about teaching issues, our third and
qualitative teaching index, have not furthered promotion,
x The importance of teaching qualifications, measured by a quantitative
index, for promotion goes in the expected direction in the HS domain and
the ST domain, but in the opposite direction in the MP domain. In the MP
domain teaching qualifications seem to have been ignored as a ground for
denial,
x Half of the applicants have completed training in tertiary-level teaching,
x The bar for teaching qualifications has been raised over time, see Figure 2.
Primarily an easily quantified part of teaching qualifications lies behind this
outcome,
x The maintenance of a standard in the University’s and the ViceChancellor’s decisions has improved – the bar more often remains still,
x We have not studied where the bar for teaching qualifications lay for chairs
before and during the time of the reform.
Mean – Index Teaching Qualifications
70.0
60.0
Decision
Promotion
Denial
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
.0
In 2006 no applications were denied.
Figure 2. Index Teaching Qualifications, experience of teaching and educational
planning over time and decision for promotion and those whose applications were
denied, mean.
9
Collaboration
x Patents occur only in the ST domain and the MP domain, and only
sparingly there,
x Systematic collaboration with industry, companies, public authorities,
other organizations, and learned societies occurs in fewer than every
fourth applicant,
x Activities designed to popularize science for the general public occur
considerably more often in the HS domain than in the MP domain and the
ST domain. Participation in the mass media is the most frequent activity,
x Experience of various kinds of collaborative activities does not seem to
play any role regarding the outcome of promotion cases.
The trust of the academic community
x Experience with assignments reflecting the trust of the academic
community furthers promotion. This involves e.g. assignments as external
examiner, member of examination board, assignments from research
councils, expert assignments in connection with recruitment or
promotion, review assignments, or assignments on boards or similar
bodies where the assignment was preceded by an election.
Leadership and responsibility for joint operations
x Leadership assignments and work with joint operations, such as
assignments as dean, head of department, director of studies, or
assignments to serve on committees and work groups, further promotion.
Assignments to serve on boards and similar bodies are included here, too.
Mobility
x Mobility is not especially high in the HS domain and the MP domain,
x Mobility furthers promotion in the MP domain and the ST domain but can
even be “detrimental” in the HS domain,
x Research stints abroad further promotion in all domains,
x We have not investigated whether the promotion reform has affected the
tendency to apply for a professorship at another higher-education
institution.
10
Research funding
x Only about every fourth applicant reports having received external
research funding,
x Among applicants who have received funding, men have received more
grants per person than women, and their grants are larger than those of
women on average,
x Among applicants who received funding there is a positive correlation
between the volume of the funding and a decision to grant promotion.
Women and men
x Women applying for promotion, as a group, have somewhat weaker
academic qualifications than corresponding men,
x Women are promoted on somewhat weaker academic qualifications than
men, and the level for women whose applications are denied is, with some
exceptions, also lower than for corresponding men,
x Women applying for promotion, as a group, have somewhat better
teaching qualifications than men,
x Women are promoted on somewhat weaker teaching qualifications than
men, but the level for those whose applications are denied is the same for
women and men,
x Women have considerably more experience than men of leadership
assignments and responsibility for joint operations,
x Women have considerably more experience than men of assignments that
reflect the trust of the academic community,
x Requirements for women and men have varied, and they have varied
simultaneously over time and among and within disciplinary domains. The
strength of this complex interaction has diminished over time.
Other findings regarding applicants
x One third of applicants have been awarded at least one academic prize,
x Fourteen per cent of applicants, a roughly equal portion of men and
women, report that they have taken parental leave of absence. However,
women report longer parental leaves than men. It is probable that both
women and men underreport this.
11
The role of experts and their statements
x Expert statements become shorter over time in all three disciplinary
domains,
x Expert statements in the MP domain and the ST domain are very short
across the entire twelve-year period, 30 cm on average, and often lack any
feedback and quality-promoting information for the applicant and for
potential applicants,
x Experts do not devote the same amount of attention to teaching
qualifications as to academic qualifications,
x Applicants’ descriptions of their own qualifications have improved over
time. This did not prompt a corresponding effect in the experts’
descriptions of these qualifications – on the contrary. The experts appear
to have “rationalized” their work over time.
Developments in the number of professors
x The number of professors doubled from 1999 to 2010 both nationally and
at Uppsala University. During the same period at least 49 (17 %) chairs
disappeared at Uppsala University.
Indexes, weighting, and justification of
weighting
For the work with coding the information in the case documents, we started with
more than a hundred variables, and a number of them were combined into eight
indexes:
x
x
x
x
Academic Qualifications
Teaching Qualifications (three indexes)
Trust of the Academic Community
Mobility
x Leadership and Responsibility for Joint Operations
x Expert Statements as a Genre
Below we account for our ways of weighting and creating indexes for academic
and teaching qualifications together with our justifications for these weights and
indexes. The other indexes and their justifications are reported in the main report
(p. 61ff).
12
Concepts such as academic qualifications and academic competence are central
in virtually every discussion about who should be given an appointment, research
grant, etc. We encounter them in ordinance texts and appointment regulations
and other texts dealing with how limited resources and values should be allocated.
But how can these concepts be operationalized? To start with, we defined a
variable space to capture, among other things, the two central concepts of
“academic qualifications” and “teaching qualifications”. One objection to indexes
of various sorts is that any measure intended to capture academic qualifications
and to be an indicator of the degree of academic competence will be imperfect.
This criticism often leads to the conclusion that such indicators are inadequate for
comparisons between different disciplines and fields of knowledge. These
problems are real, but we maintain that it must be worthwhile to attempt to
create some sort of measure for comparisons. We approached the problem by
weighting various kinds of qualifications against each other.
Index Academic Qualifications
Academic qualifications were measured via the applicants’ publications. We were
far from undertaking what might be possible using modern bibliometric methods.
We do not know the quality of the journals and know nothing about citation
degrees or field normalization. Nor did we spend time fractioning the applicants’
publications, although this would have been theoretically possible.
Fourteen variables are to capture various types of publications that are
thereafter to be weighted in relation to each other. This weighting was
determined on the basis of assumptions made in four dimensions:
x Amount of time behind the publication and the scope of the publication,
x Degree of independence and responsibility assumed for the job of creating
the publication and the work behind it,
x Degree of stringency in the academic review, and
x Degree of competition for publication space.
The work time behind a doctoral dissertation, for instance, is lengthy, formally at
least 24 months and often more, but this work is conducted under supervision.
The work time behind an article that the researcher bears the main responsibility
for is longer than for one where she or he is a co-author. The work time behind a
report issued within the country is longer than the work time behind an article for
which the author bears limited responsibility and longer than a report in a
departmental series. The work time behind an article in a well-established
13
Swedish journal is longer than the work time behind, for instance, a chapter in an
anthology. The work time behind an article written in English is probably
somewhat longer than the work time behind an equivalent article in Swedish. In
each individual case assumptions such as these may not be relevant, but when
applied to a large material, we regard assumptions about time consumed as
reasonable. We make the same judgement of reasonableness for the following
assumptions.
Of course, the scope of publications varies. It is not self-evident that many
pages of text require more work than fewer pages of text, but in general it is
reasonable to count on such co-variation.
A doctoral dissertation is created with the help of supervisors and in a setting
designed to support dissertation work and research studies. At the same time, a
doctoral dissertation is the first major project the individual pursues, and the
demands for independence are normally stepped up during the two or three net
years. We regard the degree of independence as moderate on average. 10 To write
a book as an established senior lecturer, however entails independent
responsibility executed against the background of experience and a certain degree
of routine. To be the sole author of an article or to be the first or last name entails
more responsibility and independence than being among three or more authors.
To be commissioned by a public authority, for example, to write a report about
some societal problem, including scientific and technological problems in a social
context, can require a considerable measure of responsibility.
Peer review of research findings is key to academic work. It is exercised in
various ways: at department seminars, at research conferences, at public defences
of dissertations, and in journal editors’ review of manuscripts. The most stringent
review is that of manuscripts submitted to journals. This review is normally blind.
There is variation in the stringency of both Swedish and international journals.
The question is whether one should expect a greater spread in the international
arena than nationally; “international” is not automatically synonymous with high
quality. To publish what we call a Swedish report sometimes means that the
researcher was commissioned by a ministry, an authority, a municipality, or a
company and that the commissioning body often takes charge of its publication.
Quality assurance in an academic sense may not always have been observed, but
the commissioning body assumes the responsibility for content and quality. PhDs
are quite common today among the staff of Swedish authorities, and they thereby
10
14
We registered publications starting with the doctoral dissertation.
have a certain capacity to review work also when it comes to academic products.
On top of this, the commissioning body will have turned to the academic expert
for a certain assignment because the body has reason to believe that she possesses
the relevant academic subject competence and methodological expertise. But a
Swedish report can also involve the publication of a report series for academic
purposes, such as reports published by independent research institutes or research
institutes associated with a larger organization. In such cases it is reasonable to
assume that academic review will take place.
When it comes to books and monographs, commercial publishers have
manuscripts that they receive reviewed for both content and form. Nearly all of
the registered books in our material were issued by Swedish publishers. One
problem can be that blind review is difficult to achieve in a small country.
The threshold for an article to be accepted in an international journal is
sometimes, probably most often, higher than the threshold for acceptance by a
Swedish journal. We regard the threshold for being published in one’s own
department’s report series as low. We regard the threshold for having a book
manuscript accepted by an established publisher as generally high (textbooks
issued by textbook publishers are not included in this index). The threshold for a
chapter in a book issued by a publisher is similarly high, and the same applies to
editing such a publication. Regarding books and monographs there are a couple of
problems, however:
The category chapters in books covers many different kinds of books, both
books and anthologies issued by publishers and Swedish Government Official
Reports, festschrifts, and published conference papers. It is difficult to form a
principled opinion regarding the amount of work time and degree of
independence, with the exception of what was just stated about books issued by
publishers. In general we can assume that some form of quality control has taken
place also if a festschrift, for example, is the product of a publishing company, but
also if it is a self-published volume. This is a problem that involves more than how
a festschrift is published. Modern printing methods entail that it can be relatively
easy to issue an anthology on one’s own. With modern technology for electronic
publication, funding is not even needed to defray printing costs. The problem
with self-published “books” and “publications”, the review of the content and
quality, and the low threshold for space, cannot be denied. In this category the
value of the publications is probably somewhat overestimated.
The category other publications captures reviews, articles in reference works,
in biographies, in lexical works, in catalogues for art exhibitions, etc. This type of
15
publication is often brief in scope but is reviewed for quality. The category also
includes publications that we have not been able to categorize in any other way
and where it is often unclear whether they have been reviewed for quality. This,
together with the small format, argues for low weight.
We also wish to comment on a type of publication that we have not always
registered, namely, conference papers. Judging from the applicants’ CVs this is a
particularly common emission from the academic process. In a (young) field
undergoing rapid growth, papers presented at conferences can no doubt be
important in the generation of knowledge. We registered conference papers if
they were published in an anthology with an editor and place of publication
stated. Unpublished papers or papers in “conference proceedings” have been left
aside.
Finally, something must be said about the probability of over-reporting. We
saw many instances of over-reporting, for example when the applicant
categorized departmental reports as books or when unpublished conference
papers were grouped together with published articles. In obvious cases we
followed our own categorization; otherwise our principle has been to give the
applicant the benefit of the doubt. The tendency to over-report seems to be
evenly distributed across the material and appears rather to be a matter of
individual personality.
On p. 17 we account for our weighting of academic qualifications. With these
weights, we have attempted to ensure that the types of publications common in
the humanities and social sciences receive weight in relation to those in medicine,
pharmacy, science, and technology. To be sure, we have defined the fourteen
different publication types, but we nevertheless do not believe that all definitions
signal the same thing in all disciplinary domains. One such example is Swedish
reports, which seldom occur in natural science fields and which can be difficult to
evaluate there. Another example is the great importance that is accorded to the
order of the names of authors in natural sciences but is alien to many subjects in
the humanities and social sciences.
Our reasoning about the importance of time, scope, independence, and
responsibility, peer review, and space threshold may seem abstract to many
readers, as are our weightings. We have therefore made this concrete by
presenting some typical cases. These cases, one from each disciplinary domain,
were selected on the basis of the academic qualifications of the three applicants in
question. All three have an index value that coincides with the mean value for
those promoted in the respective domains. This index was created to assign each
16
applicant a value between 1 and 100. All three cases involve individuals we deem
to be typical of their domains also in terms of teaching qualifications. The three
cases – found on pp. 18, 19, and 20 – are based on authentic cases that have been
modified slightly to obscure the identity of the individuals. In the main report (p.
91 ff) there are three further cases that are characterized by their having resulted
in denied applications at the same time as the applicants’ qualifications lie close to
the mean for those promoted in their respective disciplinary domains.
Bokmo
Weight 12
Edbok
Weight 2
Kapbok
Weight 2
Ainte
Weight 3
Aintfö
Weight 2.5
Aintsi
Weight 2
Aintöv
Weight 1
Asvee
Weight 3
Asvefö
Weight 2.5
Asvesi
Weight 2
Asveöv
Weight 1
Rapsve
Weight 2
Rapuu
Weight 1
Puböv
Weight 1.5
Index Academic Qualifications was based on 14 weighted and summed
variables. The values normalized so that: 0<x≤100.
Number of monographs, books, doctoral dissertations, including composite
dissertations
Number of editorships of books or anthologies by the applicant alone or
together with others
Number of chapters in books or anthologies by the applicant alone or together
with others
Number of articles in international, including Nordic, journals, with applicant
as sole author
Number of articles in international, including Nordic, journals with applicant as
first author name among two or more
Number of articles in international, including Nordic, journals with applicant as
last author name among two or more
Number of articles in international, including Nordic, journals with three or
more authors, applicant neither first nor last author name
Number of articles in Swedish journals with applicant as sole author
Number of articles in Swedish journals with applicant as first author name
among two or more
Number of articles in Swedish journals with applicant as last author name
among two or more
Number of articles in Swedish journals with three or more authors, applicant
neither first nor last author name
Number of reports in Sweden outside UU regardless of number of authors and
regardless of applicant’s placement among authors
Number of reports in departmental series including photocopied, etc. from UU
regardless of number of authors and regardless of applicant’s placement among
authors
Number of other publications, international and Swedish, regardless of number
of authors and regardless of applicant’s placement among authors. Reviews and
contributions to reference works, lexicons, etc.
17
Typical case from the MP domain
Morgan Persson’s index value for academic qualifications is 25.3, which is
close to the mean of 25.7 for those promoted in the MP domain. Behind
Morgan’s index value are:
x One article in an international journal; he is sole author
x Sixteen articles in international journals; he is first author name
x Twenty articles in international journals; he is last author name
x He is one author among others for 53 articles in international
articles
x One article in a Swedish journal; he is sole author.
It was not possible to determine which of Morgan’s articles constituted his
doctoral dissertation.
Morgan was born in the early 1950s. He took his doctorate at the
Karolinska Institutet in 1988 and in 1992 was granted docent competence at
Uppsala University where he was employed the previous year. He was
promoted as professor in 2002. Morgan has had several research grants; as
lead applicant he was awarded a total of SEK 14 million and as co-applicant
in other researchers’ projects nearly SEK 20 million. The application does
not reveal what portion of the latter sum was Morgan’s responsibility. As
main supervisor he ushered two and as deputy supervisor three doctoral
candidates to degree completion. At the time of his application he was
supervising four doctoral candidates. Morgan has taught less in first-cycle
(undergraduate) education than most of his colleagues with the equivalent
period of employment, but he has often lectured on his research in the
department’s third-cycle (research-level) study programmes. Morgan
attaches a summary of a course evaluation from his first-cycle teaching. He
has served as an external examiner at one dissertation defence. He served
once as a member of an investigative group at the Swedish Research Council
and once had a similar assignment abroad. Morgan completed a course in
tertiary-level teaching during his doctoral studies at the Karolinska
Institutet. He states that he is “often consulted as an expert by the National
Board of Health and Welfare, among others”.
18
A typical case in the HS domain
Hanna Svensson’s index value for academic qualifications is 22.3, which is
close to the mean of 22.1 for those promoted in the HS domain. Behind
Hanna’s index value are:
x Her doctoral dissertation, a book in Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis,
the University’s monograph series
x Editorship of one book and two anthologies
x Fifteen chapters in anthologies
x Four articles in international journals where she is sole author
x One article in an international journal where she is one author
among several
x Six articles in Swedish journals where she is sole author
x One article in a Swedish journal; she is the second name of two and
her co-author is Anna Andersson
x Five reports published in Sweden
x Two reports in the departmental series
x Fourteen other publications, four of which are articles in the
National Encyclopaedia and three are biographical articles.
Hanna was born in the late 1950s. She has three children and was on parental
leave when they were small, but she does not state how long she was on
leave. She completed her doctorate in 1994 and was awarded docent
competence five years later, both at Uppsala University. In the latter part of
the 1980s she was employed as a supervisor at a state authority, but following
completion of her PhD she taught at Uppsala University, first as an hourly
teacher and then as a part-time employee. She was appointed senior lecturer
in 2000 and was promoted to professor in 2007. As a main supervisor, Hanna
supervised two and as a deputy supervisor also two doctoral candidates to
degree completion. At the time of her application she was supervising four
doctoral candidates. She has taught first-cycle (undergraduate) courses
roughly to the same extent as most teachers with the same period of
employment, and she supervised some forty degree projects at the C level.
Hanna has lectured many times in the third-cycle (research-level) courses.
She has written three chapters in textbooks published by Studentlitteratur.
She has served as an external examiner twice and three times as a member of
an examination committee. She has contacts with her former employer and
with two municipalities, all of whom consult her as an expert. Hanna has had
two debate articles published in the Gothenburg daily Göteborgsposten and
two in the local press; she has participated in a couple of TV and radio
programmes, and she often lectures to study circles.
19
A typical case from the ST domain
Sune Thuresson’s index value for academic qualifications is 20.2, which is
close to the mean of 20.4 for those promoted in the ST domain. Behind
Sune’s index value are:
x His doctoral dissertation, a composite dissertation
x One paper for a published conference report
x Three articles in international journals where he is sole author
x Two articles in international journals; he is first author name
x He is the last author name for 27 international articles, most from
recent years as he has supervised doctoral candidates
x He is one author among several for 22 articles in international
journals.
Sune was born in the mid 1960s. He took his doctorate in 1993 and was
awarded docent competence four years later, in both cases at Uppsala
University. He had two thirteen-month post-doctoral stints in the US, and
since he returned in 1997 he has had a permanent appointment as senior
lecturer. He was promoted to professor in 2008. He has been awarded
twelve research grants, but he does not state any amounts. Sune has been the
main supervisor for four and the deputy supervisor for three successful
doctoral candidates. At the time of his application he was not supervising any
doctoral candidates, which is unusual. He has taught courses in the first cycle
(undergraduate) roughly to the same extent as most teachers with his period
of employment; he has supervised four degree projects and has served as
director of studies for period. Sune completed a five-week course in
tertiary-level teaching in the 1990s and took a three-day course in
leadership. Sune has served as an external examiner three times and as a
member of examination committees seven times. He has served as an expert
to review project applications for the Swedish Research Council on two
occasions. Sune has been interviewed once on Swedish Radio.
Index Teaching Experience, Index Supervision, and
Index Reflection on Teaching Issues
It is generally considered difficult to identify and define teaching qualifications
that can serve as a basis for conclusions about teaching competence. But, on the
other hand, it is not impossible, as experts sometimes aver. Lindberg (1990)
champions these types of arguments in Ohållbara argument mot pedagogisk
meritering? (Untenable arguments against teaching qualifications?). Work done at
20
the University’s Division for Development of Teaching and Learning has led to
the creation of structures to gather and describe teaching qualifications –
portfolios of teaching qualifications. Courses in this subject have been designed at
many higher-education institutions in the 2000s, and appointment regulations also
address the issue. We have already stated that applications for promotion have
improved over time. Qualifications are described more fully, in greater detail,
and in a more structured manner. Guidelines for applicants and heads of
department/directors of study have probably played a role in this.11
In work to register qualifications from the application documents, we have
combined 17 variables into three indexes:
x Experience of teaching and educational planning,
x Experience of supervision in third-cycle (research-level) education,
x Experience of activities that invite reflection about teaching issues.
One index, for experience of teaching and educational planning (Undutb),
includes experience such as amount of teaching in courses, amount of supervision
of degree projects in first-cycle (undergraduate) education, and assignment as
director of studies.
Supervision of doctoral candidates has played an important role in the
preparatory and assessment process for applications for promotion. We assign
more importance to the role of main supervisor than that of deputy supervisor,
and we regard it as a stronger qualification to have ushered a doctoral candidate to
degree completion than to be supervisor for a doctoral candidate with dissertation
work still in progress. One index covers supervision of doctoral candidates
(Handl).
Our third index deals with reflection about teaching issues (Reflex). This
index is designed to capture the qualitative aspects of teaching qualifications, as
opposed to the two prior indexes that are quantitative in character. Any
university teacher who has taken a course in tertiary-level teaching can hardly
avoid learning something about educational principles and processes or reflecting
about them. Since 2005 Swedish higher-education institutions have offered their
teachers ten weeks of training in tertiary-level teaching. Before that, there were
courses for many years at most institutions, albeit shorter and not coordinated
with each other nationally. Ever since the 1960s universities have had educational
11
The University’s Division for Development of Teaching and Learning has put together a number of
recommendations. One has been translated into English: “Assessing Teaching Skills in Higher Education” (2006).
21
development consultants who helped train university teachers in teaching, among
other things. We have registered whether an applicant has completed a training
course in tertiary-level teaching. Completed teacher education has of course also
been registered. In this index we also count educational development work
undertaken by the applicant, teaching materials she has produced, and
distinguished-teaching awards she has won.
In work with weighting the variables that are to capture teaching
qualifications, we have reasoned in roughly the same way as for academic
qualifications: the volume of time required by a certain type of activity, degree of
independence, and the extent of the responsibility attached to the assignment.
Here we have moreover added an aspect covering initiatives taken by the
applicant in teaching matters.
It should be mentioned that work with revising syllabuses and literature lists
and compilation of material for students as part of one’s own teaching has not
been registered. Virtually all applicants give an account of such activities, and the
variable would therefore not produce any great effect. Moreover we feel that
normal revision of syllabuses and course literature lists is one of a university
teacher’s regular duties.
On p. 23 we present our weightings for teaching qualifications. An account of
the index for other qualifications and the justification of the weighting used is
found in the main report (p. 61ff).
22
Hhex
Weight 8
Bhex
Weight 4
Hhpå
Weight 4
Bhpå
Weight 2
Srgu
Weight 10
Srfu
Weight 5
Kurg
Varying
Weight
Kurf
Varying
Weight
Hgu
Varying
Weight
Fbpu
Weight 1
Pu
Weight 3
Pur
Weight 2
Lb
Weight 6
Lbk
Weight 2
Dap
Weight 2
Utbp
Varying
Weight
Ppris
Weight 2
Index Teaching Qualifications was based on 17 weighted and summed
variables. The values normalized so that: 0<x≤100.
Number of doctoral candidates ushered to degree completion as main
supervisor. Licentiate candidates registered as 0.5; the sum is rounded
upward
Number of doctoral candidates ushered to degree completion as deputy
supervisor. Licentiate candidates registered as 0.5; the sum is rounded
upward
Number of doctoral candidates with work in progress as main supervisor.
Licentiate candidates registered as 0.5; the sum is rounded upward
Number of doctoral candidates with work in progress as deputy supervisor.
Licentiate candidates registered as 0.5; the sum is rounded upward
The applicant has served as director of studies for first- and second-cycle
(basic and advanced undergraduate) education
The applicant has served as director of studies for third-cycle (researchlevel) education
Number of courses the applicant has participated in or been in charge of;
first- and second-cycle education:
To a very limited extent: Weight 1
To some extent: Weight 2
To a considerable extent: Weight 3
To a very great extent: Weight 4
Number of courses the applicant has participated in or been in charge of;
third-cycle education:
To a very limited extent: Weight 1
To some extent: Weight 2
To a considerable extent: Weight 3
To a very great extent: Weight 4
Number of degree projects supervised:
1-19 degree projects/papers: Weight 2
20-49 degree projects/papers: Weight 3
50 or more degree projects/papers: Weight 4
The applicant has completed one or more short courses (a few days to a
week) in tertiary-level teacher training
Number of times the applicant has initiated or participated in teaching
projects
Number of times the applicant has published something about teaching
issues
Number of times the applicant has published a textbook
Incl. in
index
Number of times the applicant has published a chapter in a textbook
Reflex
Number of times the applicant has created a computer program for
teaching purposes
Tertiary-level teacher training 2005 and later: Weight 6
Tertiary-level teacher training 2004 and earlier: Weight 4
Certified subject teacher: Weight 6
Certified class teacher or preschool teaching degree: Weight 5
Other, but uncertain substantial teacher education: Weight 2
Number of distinguished-teaching prizes or awards
Reflex
Handl
Handl
Handl
Handl
Undutb
Undutb
Undutb
Undutb
Undutb
Reflex
Reflex
Reflex
Reflex
Reflex
Reflex
23
Analysis and discussion
A recurring question in this study is How high is the bar? We have seen many
examples of there being at least two bars, one for academic qualifications and one
for teaching. We also pointed out (p. 5) that the bar is not always – but usually –
at the same level for the experts and for the preparatory and decision-making
bodies. In most cases we regard the bar as being defined by the Vice-Chancellor’s
decisions in promotion cases. When some other bar is referred to in the following
text, this will be pointed out.
The importance of academic qualifications for
promotion over time
There is no doubt that the bar was placed higher during the first two years of the
reform in terms of academic qualifications than it came to be placed subsequently.
We see a number of explanations for this outcome:
First of all, we have the pent-up demand: those who applied for promotion
immediately after the reform took effect were on average older and had had more
time to accumulate qualifications. The number of chairs for them to apply for and
be appointed to was limited both at Uppsala and nationally. These circumstances
conspired to provide this group with good qualifications to show for promotion.
Secondly, it is reasonable to assume that the novelty of the promotion reform
and the various national coordinating activities raised the awareness of
competence criteria and bars among experts and decision-makers. This may have
entailed that the requirement level, at any rate in terms of academic
qualifications, was likely placed at a high level early in the period. The research
supports this assumption (Sandström 2000), as do interviews and informal
conversations we have had with individuals who were actors, such as deans, in the
national coordination efforts in 1999 and 2000.
Thirdly, part of the explanation is probably to be found in the institution of
consulting external experts. We do not know what requirement levels were
normal for appointing chair-holders prior to 1999 or what these levels have been
during the twelve-year period under study. However, we can shed some light on
this matter: during the very first period of the promotion reform it was rather
common in the HS domain for the faculty board, in its preparations, not to obtain
dedicated statements from experts, but instead to rely on statements made in
previous appointment cases. Such statements are nearly always richer in content
and more thoroughly argued and nuanced than statements formulated in
24
connection with cases of promotion. This is an indication that the experts later in
the period under study relaxed their standards and let the bar down in promotion
cases. After all, no comparison is to be made between two or more applicants, so
the experts might feel that the argumentation and conclusions, and the facts they
base them on, can be permitted to be thinner. The same psychological mechanism
may come into play regarding argumentation, conclusions, and facts when an
expert might want to propose that an application be denied. To reach a negative
conclusion, to risk hurting the applicant, to indirectly deprecate his or her
research and possibly to wind up as an actor in a national appeal case requires
more effort than to declare that the applicant is worthy of promotion. The expert
would therefore perhaps refrain from proposing that the application be denied. It
is possible to understand such thinking, but this does not excuse or legitimize it.
The experts, as a group, thus appear to have “rationalized” their work over
time, and this can be a contributory factor behind the lowering of the
requirement level that we have been able to observe. We will return to the
experts and their role.
Furthermore, it is our view that the actors in the preparatory and decisionmaking processes have grown more certain with time. Vice-rectors of disciplinary
domains and deans of faculties have gained experience from more and more cases
and therefore have more material with which to compare current cases. They also
have the support of the Higher Education Appeals Board’s decisions in a number
of appealed cases.12 This greater certainty may also have entailed clearer and more
certain advice to younger colleagues about whether to apply for promotion.
A part of our analyses has involved “chasing the bar” as it is manifested in the
qualifications for “the best of the worst”, that is, those whose applications are
denied. Figure 3 shows how academic and teaching qualifications for those whose
applications were denied are distributed around the means and medians for those
who were promoted. The teaching qualifications regard supervision of doctoral
candidates.
12
In a report (Högskoleverket 2007) the Higher Education Appeals Board established on legal grounds that good
academic qualifications could not offset poor teaching qualifications. To be eligible for promotion an applicant
must have both academic and teaching competence at the professorial level.
25
Denials only
100.0
Index – Academic Qualifications
80.0
60.0
40.0
20.
.0
.0
20.0
40.0
60.0
80.0
100.0
Index – Teaching qualifications (tutoring)
Figure 3. Correlation between Index for Academic Qualifications and Index for Teaching
Qualifications for those who were not promoted. The means (red lines) and quartiles
(black lines) for the group promoted constitute lines of demarcation.
The reader can readily see that only two cases that actually resulted in denials,
both from the 1999-2000 period, by our way of calculating, should have led to
promotions. Otherwise the cases group themselves in a manner that conforms
rather well to the regulations of the reform. We see that a handful of cases were
denied despite the fact that the applicant had good academic qualifications but
weak teaching qualifications and that the reverse is seen in a couple of cases.
Weak qualifications in one respect have not been offset by strong qualifications in
the other respect. This complies with the regulations; no compensation is
permitted.
26
The importance of academic qualifications for
promotion in different disciplinary domains, faculties,
and sections
It is well known that publication traditions vary a great deal among subjects and
faculties and that different types of channels are used to publish academic findings.
In the main report we illustrate this with a figure showing how all publications in
the study’s 294 cases are distributed across two categories: articles in
international journals and books/articles in Swedish journals/other publications.13
The variation among disciplinary domains and among faculties and sections is
indeed great.
Our purpose in constructed indexes was to create comparability among
various categories in the material, such as among disciplinary domains or between
women and men. Our index for academic qualifications evinced a good balance
among the three disciplinary domains. After a few minor adjustments in the
weightings, we achieved equilibrium across the three disciplinary domains. The
means are as follows: HS domain 21.9, MP domain 25.1, and ST domain 20.3
within a possible range of 0<x≤100. After achieving this balance, we went on to
check the mean index for each faculty and section. Figure 4 shows that the
differences are considerable within the respective disciplinary domains. Compare,
for instance, the Faculty of Arts mean with that of the Faculty of Law, or the
Computer Science Section with the Physics Section.
13
Riis, Hartman & Levander (2011) Figure 4, p. 68.
27
Mean Index – Academic Qualifications
Disciplinary domain
Hum/Soc
Med/Pharm
Sci/Tech
Engineering
Mathematics
Chemistry
Earth Sciences
Physics
Computer Science
Biology
Pharmacy
Medicine
Educational Sciences
Law
Social Sciences
Languages
Arts
Theology
Faculty
Figure 4. Index Academic Qualifications, mean, by disciplinary domain (colour), faculty,
and section.
A guide to applying the investigative model at the
individual level
Figure 3 was introduced in this presentation for a further reason, namely as a
background to Figure 5, which illustrates how our material could be used by a
senior lecturer wishing to compare his or her qualifications with those of the
senior lecturers in our study. Figure 5 shows the academic qualifications of the
eleven applicants in the Faculty of Pharmacy in our sample.
28
Faculty of Pharmacy
Decision
Index – Academic Qualifications
Promotion
Denial
Year, 1999-2010
Figure 5. Index values for applications from promotion from senior lecturer to
professor. Faculty of Pharmacy. The horizontal line shows the mean for the group
promoted at all faculties and sections.
The eleven applicants’ values are distributed across the twelve years and related
to the mean for the whole group of promotions in the sample. We see that only
one application was denied and that this applicant had the lowest value of all
applicants from the Faculty of Pharmacy. Three applicants have values close to the
mean for all successful applications at the University. The only 2003 applicant was
promoted, but her or his value lies rather close to the value for the applicant who
was turned down.
It should be rather easy for an interested senior lecturer to use our model to
calculate the value of his or her own qualifications and to juxtapose it to the values
in the type of scatter chart that Figure 5 exemplifies. In Appendix 2 of the main
report there are scatter charts showing the values for academic and teaching
qualifications across all faculties and sections. A couple of different ways to
calculate these qualifications are also provided: on the one hand, by calculating
the number of unweighted publications and, on the other hand, using our index
values. The index value for academic qualifications was calculated as the sum of
weighted publications divided by 5.155, where 5.155 is a normalizing factor. The
29
former way, to calculate on the basis of the number of unweighted publications,
probably works well in the natural sciences but hardly in the humanities and social
sciences. It should also be pointed out that we have not created any “readyreckoners” for qualifications involving leadership and the trust of the academic
community. Anyone wishing to scrutinize their own qualifications ahead of a
possible application for promotion is nevertheless well advised not to ignore these
types of qualifications.
But – the information that can be gleaned from our scatter charts is of limited
value: to start with, the charts only show where the bar was placed for different
faculties and sections at Uppsala University during the 1999-2010 period. It may
have been different at other higher-education institutions. Secondly, these
findings encourage discussions in faculties and sections regarding where the bar
should be placed for the respective eligibility and whether changes are called for.
Some findings can only be explained on the basis of knowledge of the frameworks
and preconditions in place at a particular faculty or section.
The importance of teaching qualifications for promotion
over time
The requirements for teaching qualifications have been raised over time.
However, the question is whether this greater stringency has been “correct” and
desirable. To be promoted, applications have had to clear both the academic bar
and the teaching bar. Compensation – allowing weak teaching qualifications to be
offset by very strong academic qualifications – is not permissible according to the
Higher Education Appeals Board.14
Our index for supervision in third-cycle study programmes had a clear impact
on the outcome of promotion cases. In a very large number of cases, this criterion
was decisive. This was only to be expected against the background of the national
coordination efforts that took place in the ST domain and the MP domain. The
coordination entailed that completed supervision of one and two doctoral
candidates, respectively, was laid down as a minimum criterion. This criterion
found no support in the ordinance language and it also came to be questioned in
appeals and ultimately rejected by the Higher Education Appeals Board, but it was
nevertheless regularly used in these two domains.
Supervision of doctoral candidates is a demanding assignment that should be
assumed to require competence and commitment from the supervisor. But even
14
30
National Agency for Higher Education 2007.
an incompetent supervisor’s candidates normally complete their doctorates and
an incompetent supervisor’s candidates usually receive other assistance via the
department and faculty. The organization cannot afford to allow a doctoral
candidate and her/his project to fall by the wayside. The criterion of “at least
one/two doctoral candidates through completion” is thus primarily a quantitative
measure and one that is not necessarily a measure of the teaching competence of
the supervisor. We maintain that this measure has been used far too often in a
routine manner. This criticism applies to the Vice-Chancellor, Vice-rectors,
deans, faculty boards, and experts. It applies to the MP domain and the ST
domain to a greater extent than to the HS domain.
Teaching qualifications involving reflection about teaching issues seldom
receive much attention in statements from experts, nor do they have any
positively measurable impact on the outcome of promotion cases. This is cause for
concern.
A further reason for the University to have high demands for teaching
qualifications is that promoted professors will not automatically have other
working conditions and duties than they previously had. The reform was
unfunded, and therefore the promoted professors’ teaching loads cannot readily
be shrunk to the level of chair-holders. In other words, the University has had
more than constitutional reasons to require good teaching competence in the
senior lecturers wishing to be promoted: their primary duty will often be teaching
and education, so it has been important for the reward conferred in the form of
promotion to send the right signal.
Teaching qualifications across disciplinary domains
The importance of teaching qualifications for promotion runs in the expected
direction in the HS domain and ST domain, but in the opposite direction in the
MP domain. The MP domain’s cases show that teaching qualifications are not
even subject to assessment in the preparatory and decision-making process at the
University – despite the fact that the national coordination had reached a
consensus about a minimum criterion for teaching. Not a single one of the
population’s 135 cases from the MP domain was denied on the basis of lack of
teaching competence. In many cases the experts recommended denial of
promotion on the ground of weaknesses in this respect, but in no case that we
have seen was this information conveyed in writing to the Vice-Chancellor. It is
hard to believe that this is ascribable to anything other than those in charge at the
31
domain choosing to ignore the eligibility criterion of teaching competence in
these cases.
In the HS domain the majority of applicants had relatively extensive teaching
qualifications to present. The primary reason is that education constitutes a larger
proportion of total operations, with more students and a smaller proportion for
research allocations than in the other two disciplinary domains. On the other
hand, applicants here had less experience of supervision. The explanations are
multiple and interacting, but it is a matter of many subjects long having had only
one or just a few professors and that these chair-holders normally supervised all
doctoral candidates. Furthermore these candidates were often “hobby candidates”
with a job outside the University and long periods of study. In such a situation,
senior lecturers were not needed as research supervisors.
Between the ST domain and the Vice-Chancellor a disagreement arose during
the first years regarding how much weight to assign to teaching qualifications. The
faculty board’s committee for promotions claimed that they had applied their own
requirements relatively consistently and that problems arose when the ViceChancellor went against the committee’s and the faculty board’s proposals. The
committee declared that its requirements regarding teaching qualifications were
“already set low”, that these requirements were lowered even more by the ViceChancellor’s decision and that this decision had ”resulted in a reinforcement of the
traditional view that teaching qualifications carry little weight”. 15 They also
maintained that a reason for the committee to maintain a standard is that the
“experts’ care in applying the criteria was limited in several cases”. A benefit
ensuing from this documented conflict is that after the fact we can learn
something about how people reasoned about teaching qualifications, at least in the
ST domain. Part of the explanation is that the bar has been raised for teaching
qualifications over time; it was to some extent kept low in the first couple of
years.
We also want to raise the question of the character of doctoral supervision as
an activity. To what extent should this rather be viewed as a component of
academic work? In the natural sciences it is very common for the supervisor to be
listed as co-author of the candidate’s articles. An applicant with strong academic
qualifications but weak teaching qualifications could choose to list research
collaboration with doctoral candidates as teaching qualifications. Assessors,
similarly, could count these qualifications towards one eligibility criterion or the
other in an arbitrary manner. We have seen several examples of this in the
15
32
Minutes of the Committee for Promotions, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, 2000-05-17.
material from the MP domain and from the ST domain, but on the other hand not
from the HS domain.
The importance of gender in the promotion process
One question dealt with whether we could observe any differences between how
women’s and men’s qualifications, respectively, were described, judged, and
evaluated. The only really clear differences between women and men applying for
promotion are, first of all, that women as a group have somewhat lower academic
qualifications and higher teaching qualifications than men. Secondly, we have seen
that the bar for academic qualifications is placed lower for women than for men,
measured as the mean for those whose applications were denied. The reverse is
true of the bar for teaching qualifications regarding experience from teaching and
educational planning in the HS domain and the ST domain. If, instead, the bar is
for experience of supervision of doctoral candidates, then the bar is placed lower
for women than for men in the HS domain and the MP domain. This could be
seen as supporting the notion that supervision of doctoral candidates is at least as
important as a component of research as it is as a teaching activity.
The differences between women and men that we could observe among the
domains were particularly manifest at the beginning of the twelve-year period.
They were detrimental to women in the MP domain and the ST domain and
detrimental to men in the HS domain. This interaction requires explanations that
lie beyond what our empirical material can provide. The strength of this
interaction diminishes with time, however.
Two types of experience and qualifications have clearly worked in favour of
women, namely activities evincing the trust of the academic community and
experience of leadership and responsibility for joint operations. In these respects
women clearly have more qualifications than men, and these qualifications co-vary
in a positive manner with decisions in promotion cases. One explanation for this
seems obvious: owing to expectations from gender equality policy and local
gender equality policy, more and more women have successively been engaged as
external examiners and as members of examination committees, department
boards, faculty boards, etc. The same is probably true regarding positions of
leadership of various kinds. In that case, this involves changes that have been
taking place at a societal and institutional level. On the other hand, women
themselves may also be a driving force. Lindberg et al. (2011) maintain that there
is a norm-governed self-selection at play in gender-equality processes. It may be
that we have here a group of women who have seen leadership assignments as part
33
of a broader career path through academia. Some men have no doubt also seen
this opportunity, but the women applying for promotion to professor constitute a
strongly selected group, and such a career strategy can thereby have an impact in
a more palpable manner.
Attention paid to assessing teaching qualifications and
balance in describing and evaluating teaching and
academic qualifications
One of the study’s questions was about the weight ascribed to academic
qualifications and teaching qualifications in relation to each other and whether
there are any systematic changes in this regard over time.
The applicants structure the presentation of their qualifications in a
successively clearer manner. An advantage of using a given structure, such as
some variant of the portfolio of teaching qualifications, is that no qualifications are
forgotten or presented unclearly, something we have seen many examples of in
the material from the first few years. On the other hand, the experts’ descriptions
of the qualifications they have reviewed and are to evaluate have not improved.
Their statements have instead deteriorated with time in this respect! This trend in
fact took place concurrently with the creation of material to support the work of
these experts.
The experts, especially in the MP domain and the ST domain, write
surprisingly brief statements, on average only about 30 cm of text about the
academic and teaching qualifications together. In the HS domain it happens
occasionally that statements are instead unreasonably long in relation to their
purpose, but the average statement is just over 80 cm long. In 80 cm there is
room both to (briefly) summarize the qualifications submitted by the applicant, to
evaluate them, and to present a conclusion. Those experts who write about one
page of text or less normally go straight to their conclusion. These statements are
deficient in both quantity and structure and thereby also in quality.
Regardless of the total length of the statements, there are very few experts
who devote much space to teaching qualifications, in either absolute or relative
terms.
Another question regarded possible differences among knowledge domains
and over time when it comes to the balance in the attention paid to the
description of the two types of qualifications. For experts in the MP domain and
the ST domain it is hardly possible to shorten the portion of text they devote to
34
teaching qualifications, but for experts in the HS domain, this is a possibility. And
indeed the latter experts’ statements also do become ever shorter with time
regarding the assessment of teaching qualifications.
We created three indexes as measures of teaching qualifications. Our original
intention was to have one index as a measure of experience of teaching and
educational planning in a quantitative sense and one index to capture the
qualitative aspects of the teaching activities of a university teacher. It soon proved
to be necessary to break out Research Supervision from the quantitative measure
and make it its own quantitative index, as it would otherwise knock out the
effects of other quantitatively measured teaching qualifications. The index for
Teaching Experience had an impact on decisions in promotion cases in roughly
the same way as the index for Supervision, albeit to a lesser degree. Thus far we
have support that the Supervision index has functioned rather well, even though
the supervision criterion was dealt with only routinely in the preparatory and
decision-making process. But the index that is to capture Reflection about
Teaching Issues, a measure of a qualitative dimension, has no impact on decisions.
When we juxtapose these observations, the conclusion is discouraging: an
individual may have attempted to improve qualitatively as a teacher by taking
teacher training, by pursuing educational development work, or by writing
publications on teaching issues. But if this individual applies for promotion to
professor, she cannot count on these qualifications furthering her cause.
Another problem is that the experts relatively often lump together teaching
qualifications and qualifications regarding popularization of research. To be sure,
good research information is predicated upon the academic being able to present
her message in an understandable way. But teaching competence in teaching and
educational situations with responsibility for student learning, examination of
students, and following up their studies over time involves much more than that.
Have teaching qualifications played a greater role in promotion cases than in
appointments of chair-holders? We do not know, as we have not been able to
make any systematic comparisons between the two types of cases. Nevertheless,
our sense is that teaching qualifications have played a greater role for decisions in
promotion cases at any rate in the HS domain and the ST domain. We base this
also on conversations and informal interviews with actors in the preparatory
process. In every promotion case the University has to take a stand about an
already employed teacher, and it can be assumed that this teacher will remain at
Uppsala regardless of the outcome of the case. This means that there is no cost
involved in placing the bar for teaching qualifications high. In recruiting a chair-
35
holder, on the other hand, there is a risk of losing a person with high academic
competence or with a type of expertise vital to the University if the requirements
for teaching competence are set too high.
Experts and their statements
Despite our criticism, we have also come across a few experts who have truly
devoted a great deal of work and column space to teaching qualifications. But the
great majority dissociate themselves from the assignment of judging teaching
competence without giving any detailed reasons. A great many experts also
dissociate themselves, as mentioned, from the assignment of judging academic
competence without giving any detailed reasons. We encountered an observation
in a quotation on p. 32 from the ST domain that the attention paid by the experts
was “limited”. This supports our view of the experts’ work more generally in all
three disciplinary domains.
Do these brief, illogically structured, and poor presentations reflect a general
practice or have the experts chosen a summary genre because the person they are
supposed to assess is not to be compared with anyone else? In the recruitment of
chair-holders, two questions are to be answered: firstly, whether each and every
one of the applicants is eligible for the chair to start with and, secondly, which of
the candidates is the strongest. Experts probably put more work into the second
question. The question then naturally arises regarding explanations for the low
quality of statements in connection with promotion cases. Do experts not think
the assessment of a young colleague’s qualifications is important when it comes to
a promotion? Do the experts adjust the amount of work they put into the
assignment to the honorarium they receive (a gross sum of SEK 3 000 [~USD
450] for most of the period under study)? Do these experts have far too many
expert assignments per individual? We estimate that the promotion reform
generated at least some 10,000 assignments in the country over the twelve-year
period.16 At any rate, the feedback that an expert statement should provide the
applicant is not provided. Meanwhile, a cardinal principle of peer review is that
the process should enhance quality!
One conclusion regarding the role in the promotion process played by experts
in the natural sciences is the following: if the statements’ scope, illogical
structure, and meagre content reflects a general practice, that is a practice that is
16
In 1998, at the time of the introduction of the promotion reform, there were some 2,300 professors in
Sweden.
36
applied also in assessing applicants for chairs – in competition following public
posting, that in itself is a cause for concern. But if it is a practice that has emerged
from the promotion reform itself, then the question must be asked whether this
practice has spread or risks being spread to the institution of calling in external
experts in its totality. In that case, does this have consequences for other parts of
the promotion and appointment process?
Collaboration with the wider community
We have not succeeded in registering with precision the many different activities
that the applicants mention as examples of collaboration with the wider
community. This is primarily because accounts of these activities are often written
in very broad terms. Therefore, we have not been able to quantify collaborative
activities or relate them to the outcomes of promotion cases. With this
reservation, our view is that patents and stable, long-term contacts with industry
do further promotion in the ST domain and that numerous and visible efforts in
popularizing academic finding do further promotion in the HS domain.
The importance of some auxiliary qualifications
Mobility
In the mid 1990s an average of some three quarters of all university teachers in
Sweden were still at the institution where they took their doctorate, and at
Uppsala University, this proportion was 89 per cent among senior lecturers (SOU
1996:166). Our material indicates that the corresponding proportion for the
1999-2010 period was 70 per cent. The National Agency for Higher Education
(2012) reported in a study of academic mobility that 64 per cent of professors
employed at Uppsala University in the 2001-2009 period had completed their
doctorate there. All in all, these figures indicate that there was greater mobility
among Uppsala University professors in the 2000s than in the 1990s.
We have also registered whether the individuals applying for promotion had
been employed by one or more higher-education institutions before they were
employed by Uppsala University, whether they had been employed outside
academia, and whether they had had a research stint abroad. The most important
results are shown on p. 10.
But academic mobility comprises more components than these. For an
individual who is promoted to a professorship, one incentive for applying for a
37
chair at another institution disappears, and this was a concern ahead of the
promotion reform. Another concern was that the number of professorial chairs
would decrease and that this would further reduce mobility. We have shown that
at least some fifty traditional chairs have disappeared at Uppsala University since
the promotion reform took effect. This represents seventeen per cent of all chairs
at the University in 1998, a considerable drop. One prior concern – that
promoted professors would be replacing chair-holders – was thus well founded.
However, we were not able to investigate this aspect of the mobility problem
complex more thoroughly. This would have required a different design and a
different empirical base.
The trust of the academic community and leadership
assignments within the University
One finding is the clear positive value in promotion matters ascribed to activities
that are expressions of the academic community’s trust and what has been called
work to advance the subject 17 as well as activities involving leadership
responsibilities and participation in joint operations. These findings appear to be
valid over time and across disciplinary domains. On the other hand, we have not
investigated whether there are differences among faculties and sections.
We see two explanations for this: on the one hand, there is a clear structure of
expectations that many applicants are probably aware of and that finds expression
in portfolios of qualifications and in appointment regulations. These kinds of
documents can thus be expected to influence the behaviour of individuals. But we
have also pointed out that certain senior lecturers, especially women, have
moreover seen an opportunity to acquire qualifications “in breadth” as a
complement to their qualifications showing academic “depth”.
Proposals
Against the background of these findings, as author of this report, I would like to
formulate a number of proposals. A couple of them regard changes that it should
be possible to implement with very little effort:
x To enhance the quality of the work done by experts, a contract should be
drawn up with them in which the University’s expectations are stated and
to which the University can refer if a statement is of poor quality.
17
38
See Riis, Hartman & Levander (2011) p. 37f.
x In order to improve the judgement and evaluation of teaching
qualifications in all stages of the promotion process, especially
qualifications regarding teaching competence on a deeper plane, I propose
training in this regard for recruitment groups and appointment boards. It
would thereby be possible to free external experts from having to judge
qualitative teaching qualifications, which is often an impossible task for
them.
A few proposals involve somewhat greater changes:
x Today the Higher Education Ordinance does not permit compensation
between different types of qualifications. But if compensation were
permitted, or even encouraged, then senior lecturers could be promoted
on the basis of very good academic qualifications or on the basis of very
good teaching qualifications or even on the basis of very good qualifications
regarding collaboration with the wider community. Such a system would
make it “worthwhile” for the individual and encourage efforts to develop
professionally in terms of teaching or regarding the collaborative mission.
This would benefit all aspects of the University’s core operations.
x A further proposal involves mere changes in practice. If everyone –
applicants, external experts, decision-makers at all levels – systematically
were to begin to regard broad knowledge of the subject as part of teaching
qualifications, the meaning of teaching qualifications would be more
concrete in a transparent manner. Moreover, the value of many
professors’ contribution to undergraduate education would appreciate. In
the Appointment Regulations in force at Uppsala University as of 1
January 2012, there is just such a breadth criterion (Chapter 5, Section
50). It is a matter of making use of this breadth criterion.
x The study has revealed major differences among faculties and sections
within one and the same disciplinary domain. Finally, I obviously hope to
see a discussion in faculties and sections about where the bar should be
placed for academic qualifications and for teaching qualifications,
respectively.
39
Need for further knowledge
It would be worthwhile to investigate the institution of external experts: has the
institution of external experts been eroded in recent years? If so, is this somehow
related to the promotion reform?
On p. 5 I discuss the dilution of research allocations as a consequence of the
promotion reform not having been funded. Another urgent study should address
trends in the number of professorial chairs filled in competition and following
public posting since 1999 and the distribution of research allocations to these
chairs.
40
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