Balance between research and teaching

27 November 2009

By Reinhold Behringer

Researchers who are working in academia are facing the dilemma of having to divide their time between two core activities that constitute scholarly activity: performing scheduled teaching tasks which ensure that the university where they are employed fulfils its obligation to student education, and performing research. Depending on which type of university the researcher works, the balance may be tipped towards either end of the scale. In a research-intensive university such as the Russell Group of Universities, the emphasis is on conducting world-class research, for the prestige of the institution. But this sometimes means that the teaching quality suffers: research is very time-consuming, and it might be that the researcher would then rather work on a particular research experiment than to be available for student contact. In post-1992 universities, however, the balance may be more tilt towards providing a good educational support for the students: in this case the researcher may be allocated a large amount of teaching hours, not leaving much time for conducting any meaningful research.

The ideal is of course close to the centre of these two extremes, with a slight twist to reflect the particular institution’s character: research-intensive universities must ensure that their research activities feed back into the curriculum and are not solely driven by the individual aspirations of ambitious researchers. If this is not done, then there is no reason why students would attend such a university if they do not get any benefits from the ongoing research. On the other hand, in teaching-intensive institutions research needs to be fostered as well, so that not only dead text-book knowledge is being taught, but that the students are learning with tutors who are working at the edge of knowledge and are expanding it. Finding the right balance is here the key.