Academic Employment Function

Academic staff will either have a balanced portfolio of academic activities, whereby they will be required to undertake a combination of teaching, research and scholarship, outreach and administrative activities (referred to as T+R) or will either have a teaching-intensive portfolio whereby the focus of their work is concerned with teaching/administration/leadership and management activities (referred to as T) or a research-intensive portfolio whereby the focus of their work is concerned with research activities (referred to as R).

The HESA definitions of the academic employment function are as follows:

• Teaching only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed only to undertake teaching.
• Teaching and research staff are those whose contracts of employment state that they are employed to undertake both teaching and research.
• Research only staff are those whose contracts of employment state that the primary academic employment function is research only, even though the contract may include a limited number of hours teaching (up to 6 hours per week or pro-rata for part-time staff).
• Neither teaching nor research staff are those whose contracted academic employment function is neither teaching nor research, e.g. Vice-Chancellor.

The University also recognises that, although exceptional, there may be occasions when it is deemed appropriate and necessary for an academic member of staff to move to an alternate variant of the academic contract.

The process agreed for allocating an Academic member of staff in an alternative variant to the academic contract is contained in the Academic Employment Function Change Process

Complete the Academic Employment Function Change form to confirm agreement of the employee and action the change in their contract.