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Improving the quality of teaching in a research-led university

High status universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and Trinity College Dublin are often old (absolutely or relatively) and usually research-led. Universities aspiring to high status, while not being able to do anything about their age, frequently claim to be research-led and/or adopt policies and practices of their prestigious counterparts which emphasise research as their primary core business. Such policies and practices include: recruiting academic staff primarily on the basis of their research reputation; promoting academic staff only on the basis of their research output; funding research development far better than teaching and learning development; increasing postgraduate enrolments at the expense of undergraduate enrolments; and in general, promoting and publicising research at the expense of teaching. Trying to improve the quality of teaching in an overtly research-led university is more than usually problematical with many senior academic staff and administrators being more than happy with the status quo. The paper draws on the experience of the authors in introducing systematic teaching development to a high status Irish university and poses a number of questions for discussion such as: • Is there a nexus between good research and good teaching? • What does Boyer’s conception of the ‘Scholarship of Teaching’ really mean and is it a useful tool in teaching development? • How can we introduce enqury-led teaching? • Is academic staff development primarily about working with individuals or about changing structures and cultures? • Is it desirable to separate teaching development from management development?