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The authors of the feature ¡°Leading lights¡± (4 May) discussed research showing how the best academics make the best heads of department.

These very interesting findings chime with my own experience at a Russell Group university. The only good head of department I have had in my years here is a world-leading researcher, who has a much better understanding of what is needed to promote high-quality research and teaching than those who turn to administration as a career choice.

Our current head of department was recruited externally. His research profile is middling, and, of course, we all realise that the people who actively choose to take on a senior management role for at least five years aren¡¯t going to be leading researchers. This results in a manager who has an incentive to follow the central university¡¯s agenda to the letter, introducing constant change to justify his position as someone promoted to a professorship on an admin track and having very little sense of how to promote job satisfaction and an active research culture on the ground.

It¡¯s an infuriating situation, but I hope that this research can point higher education institutions in the right direction.

meme
Via timeshighereducation.com

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