manager, leader, entrepreneur” (Gordon, 1997: 67-68). These can be clustered under six overarching
core functions: teaching and student support; research; community service; professional service;
leadership, management and consultancy; and developmental project work.
Thus, the historical trilogy of academic work: teaching, research and administration, would
appear to have been expanded, although some suggest that erosion has also taken place of the broad
balance between the tripartite functional roles of an academic (Blackmore and Blackwell, 2006,
p. 374). Moreover, a growing minority of academics may spend a substantial proportion of their time
on functions such as leadership and management, consultancy, and professional or community service.
While they may do this to serve the needs of their institution or department, such activities may also
match the interests and aptitudes of the individuals concerned, or their perception of positive
opportunities. Here, attention will focus on three aspects of the effects on these trends on academic
staff: management responses in terms of recognition and reward; academic identities; and
development and support activity.
Management responses in the recognition and reward of staff
Management responses vary between institutions and sectors, but they can be broadly divided
into responses which address career paths, implicitly or explicitly; and responses which provide
additional finance for additional responsibilities or for performance in relation to the broader academic
functions outlined above. There can be considerable overlap between those two groupings, which are
not necessarily polarised as alternative strategies. In the dynamic environment outlined earlier, any
system that inhibits changes to academic career pathways, or additional financial payments for extra
responsibilities, will be confronted by distinct challenges. In such circumstances, the options could
involve additional demands on academics without extra pay or formal recognition, and the creation of
new professional support roles to perform tasks such as learning support, project management,
instructional design or student advice and guidance. However, in many cases, institutions may have
developed implicit and, more recently, explicit ways of addressing the career development and career
pathways of academic staff.
A common starting point has been for institutions, which have such authority to define new posts
and titles, to attach particular salaries to such posts, or to pay a responsibility component, sometimes
performance-related. Many of those responsibilities entail what could be viewed as leadership and
management functions, for example in relation to teaching, research or entrepreneurship; academic
quality assurance and enhancement; or another key institutional objective. These posts can be centrally
based or pan-institutional. If based in faculties, schools or departments, they may have a narrower
locus of responsibility. For example, institutions with schemes for encouraging some individuals to
focus on learning and teaching have articulated semi-explicit career structures, in which individuals
might seek to progress from an institutional teaching fellowship to a broader leadership and
management function, such as the role of associate dean or of director of teaching in a department or
school. Increasingly, institutions have adjusted promotion criteria to enable progression on the basis of
a broader range of academic activities, even though the perception on the ground may continue to be
that performance in research outweighs other criteria. These trends in the United Kingdom and
elsewhere could be seen as analogous to established practice in the United States. However, in the
United Kingdom these individuals normally continue to be classed as academics, whereas in the
United States many of them, at least temporarily, become categorised as administrators.
The position of early or mid-career researchers who do not hold full academic posts is also
attracting management attention in higher education institutions; bodies responsible for funding
research; and, particularly in continental Europe, research institutes which are major employers of
research staff. In 2005, the European Commission published recommendations on the European