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Lesley-Jane Eales-Reynolds (Letters, 3 August) makes a useful suggestion for some ¡°calibration¡± across universities for what it actually means to meet Higher Education Academy standards. The University of Roehampton case (¡°Credibility of the UK¡¯s teaching fellowship process under scrutiny¡±, News, 20 July) points to the need for greater transparency and peer control.

The need to ensure that teaching is of a consistently high standard has become the subject of internally set performance measures such as ¡°requiring¡± all staff to gain HEA recognition, and external marketing incentives such as the teaching excellence framework. This creates moral hazards in a situation where the HEA has delegated the right to award fellowship recognition to universities.

In the Roehampton case, the university¡¯s investigation report records that the university¡¯s fellowship review panel decided to override the HEA accreditation requirement for two referees¡¯ reports on each application. Despite this, the investigator found ¡°no evidence¡± to support the allegations made regarding the validity of the procedure undertaken. This suggests a fundamental disconnect about who has the power to award fellowship status.

Rebecca Boden
University of Tampere, Finland

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