I was struck today by a HEPI blog from Tim Savage exploring the relationship between technician visibility in TEF submissions and institutional performance. His analysis found that providers referencing technicians in their submissions were substantially more likely to achieve stronger TEF outcomes.
I think Tim’s interpretation is a persuasive one. Institutions that recognise the contribution of technicians, librarians, learning developers and other professional colleagues are likely to have healthier and more collaborative educational cultures than those that continue to see responsibility for teaching quality as sitting solely with academic staff.
The findings themselves are interesting, but what if the interesting question is not why technicians are associated with teaching excellence, but why technicians have become increasingly important to student learning in the first place?
From disciplinary expertise to learning expertise
For much of the twentieth century, universities operated within a relatively elite system. Students attended because they were interested in a particular subject and were prepared to undertake substantial independent study. The language reflected this reality: students did not “do” a degree; they “read” for one.
In that environment, the traditional lecturer role made perfect sense. Academics were appointed because of their disciplinary expertise and research capability. Their role was to create knowledge and disseminate it. Teaching and research were not identical activities, but they were closely related.
The expansion of higher education has changed that landscape. Universities now serve larger and more diverse student populations. Some students remain motivated primarily by intellectual curiosity and a passion for a particular discipline. But, it is difficult to imagine the massification of higher education without a corresponding increase in motivations centred on employability, career progression and economic opportunity.
That shift matters because it changes what successful teaching looks like. Learning increasingly depends on curriculum design, assessment design, feedback, coaching, mentoring, engagement and the creation of learning experiences that work for students from very different starting points.
Teaching has not become more important than research. It has, however, become a specialist practice in its own right.
Professionalising teaching
The sector has recognised this reality for some time. The growth of PGCertHE programmes, Advance HE Fellowships, National Teaching Fellowships, and educational development activity all point towards an acknowledgement that expertise in a discipline is not the same thing as expertise in helping others learn that discipline.
Yet qualifications and recognition schemes are only starting points. A PGCertHE provides an introduction to the theory and practice of learning and teaching; it does not create expertise. Researchers become experts because they spend years reading, writing, presenting, debating, testing ideas and participating in disciplinary networks. Teaching-focused academics develop expertise in much the same way: they engage with pedagogical scholarship, attend conferences, build professional networks, evaluate innovations, experiment with new approaches and contribute to knowledge about learning and teaching.
Their scholarship increasingly focuses not simply on what is known within a discipline, but on how students learn that discipline most effectively. The difference is not simply one of qualification, but of continuing scholarly focus. Most research-focused academics quite understandably invest their limited time for scholarship and professional engagement in pushing the boundaries of their discipline. Teaching-focused academics invest that same effort in understanding how students learn, how curricula can be improved, and how educational experiences can be redesigned to improve outcomes. Over time, that sustained engagement creates a distinctive form of expertise in its own right.
That distinction moves us beyond the idea that teaching expertise can simply be added onto any academic role through a qualification or training course. Teaching-focused academics are not simply academics who have completed a PGCertHE: they are colleagues who have continued to invest in developing expertise in learning and teaching over many years.
An accidental specialism?
It is tempting to tell a neat story in which teaching-focused academic roles emerged because universities recognised the need for specialists in learning and teaching. I’m not convinced that is historically accurate.
In many institutions, University Teacher roles seemed to emerge for much more pragmatic reasons. Student numbers increased. Teaching demands increased. Research expectations remained strong. Universities needed additional teaching capacity, and teaching-focused roles provided a practical solution.
Initially, these roles often differed from traditional academic appointments primarily through the allocation of higher teaching loads. Over time, however, many of those occupying them developed distinctive expertise in curriculum design, assessment, pedagogy, student engagement and educational scholarship. What may have started as a workforce solution gradually evolved into something more significant: a specialist form of academic practice.
Yet institutions have not always fully adapted to that reality. Research-focused pathways remain relatively well understood, with established routes for progression, recognition and reward. In contrast, teaching-focused careers often feel less settled, despite decades of discussion about the importance of learning and teaching.
The current financial pressures facing the sector make this particularly significant. If teaching-focused roles are still viewed primarily through the lens of the capacity problem they were originally created to solve, the there’s a risk that periods of declining or volatile student recruitment may create pressure to reduce them.
The irony is that these roles may now be most valuable precisely because of the expertise they have developed. Institutions are increasingly challenged to recruit and support more diverse student populations, improve continuation and graduate outcomes, and meet regulatory expectations such as B3. Success in these areas depends on understanding how students learn, where they struggle, and how learning experiences can be designed to help them succeed in their chosen discipline. Universities that continue to view teaching-focused academics through the lens of a historic capacity challenge may risk overlooking the specialist expertise those colleagues have developed over time.
What are technicians really telling us?
This brings me back to Tim’s analysis.
One interpretation of increasing technician visibility is that universities are becoming more willing to recognise the contribution technicians make to learning and teaching. That recognition is long overdue. Technicians often provide exactly the kind of practical, contextual and relational support that students need, and many are deeply embedded in the day-to-day realities of learning.
What interests me, however, is the comparison with research. Nobody would argue that technicians make researchers unnecessary. We understand that excellent research depends on different forms of expertise working together. Researchers provide intellectual leadership, develop questions, generate knowledge and disseminate findings. Technicians contribute equally valuable forms of technical and practical expertise that enable that work to take place.
Teaching may be moving in the same direction. Teaching-focused academics provide intellectual leadership for learning and teaching. They design curricula, evaluate pedagogical approaches, create learning experiences and contribute to educational scholarship. Researchers contribute disciplinary expertise and expose students to the frontiers of knowledge. Technicians and professional colleagues contribute practical, contextual and relational expertise that supports both activities.
So viewed, technician visibility may tell us less about the changing role of technicians than about the increasingly specialised nature of teaching itself. Just as technicians support and enable research alongside researchers, their growing contribution to learning highlights the importance of having colleagues whose expertise lies in leading, designing and developing learning and teaching. The more interesting question may not be why technicians matter, but whether universities have fully recognised the specialist expertise that sits alongside them.
A question for the sector
The lesson I take from Tim’s article is not that universities need fewer technicians involved in teaching and learning. Nor is it that research-active academics should somehow retreat from the student experience. Students benefit enormously from engaging with active researchers, just as they benefit from technicians, learning technologists, academic developers and a wide range of other specialist colleagues.What I wonder, however, is whether technician visibility is drawing attention to a question that the sector has still not fully answered.
Over the past three decades, universities have invested heavily in recognising the importance of learning and teaching. We have created qualifications, professional recognition frameworks, teaching awards, fellowships and teaching-focused career pathways. In so doing, we may also have created a distinctive form of academic expertise that sits alongside disciplinary research rather than beneath it.
The challenge for the sector is that many of these roles were not originally created with that destination in mind. What began as a response to growing teaching demands has, in many institutions, evolved into a cadre of specialists whose expertise lies in curriculum design, pedagogy, student engagement and educational scholarship. Yet promotion pathways, reward structures and institutional cultures have not always kept pace with that evolution.
At precisely the moment when institutions are competing for students, supporting increasingly diverse cohorts and seeking to improve continuation and graduate outcomes, that expertise may be more important than ever. Universities need colleagues who can provide leadership not only for research, but also for learning and teaching.
Yet this raises a further challenge. If teaching-focused academics possess expertise that is genuinely distinct, how are institutions enabling them to exercise that expertise? While most universities have well-established pathways through which disciplinary researchers become professors, directors, deans, pro-vice-chancellors and sector leaders, equivalent pathways for teaching specialists often remain less visible and less certain.
The question, then, is not simply whether universities recognise teaching-focused academics. It is whether institutional reward structures, promotion pathways and leadership models have kept pace with the expertise these colleagues have developed. If we believe that teaching excellence requires specialist knowledge, leadership and scholarship, how do we ensure those who possess that expertise are able to shape curricula, lead educational strategy, drive pedagogical innovation and influence the future direction of our institutions?
