Teaching matters. Let's show it!

The Educationalist. By Alexandra Mihai

Jul 09, 2026

Welcome to a new issue of “The Educationalist”! As we’re wrapping up another Academic Year, I would like to focus today on a topic that has been at the centre of many conversations I had recently at the ICED conference in Salamanca: the recognition of teaching and teaching excellence in Higher Education. If you are a regular here, you already know that for me teaching is at the very core of the academic life. Unfortunately, what we see in practice is that in many universities, especially in those that are research- intensive, educational achievements are not seen on a par with research work, with consequences in the structure of career paths and institutional incentives. Passionate educators put in a lot of their own spare time in improving and innovating their teaching and in creating a supportive learning environments, often with no rewards or impact on their career. This, of course, is not a sustainable practice. While there are efforts being made to bring teaching more to the forefront and reward it appropriately, they often fall short at the implementation stage. Why? Because this is not a mere “policy issue”. It involves a change in culture and mindset, and this cannot happen overnight. I’ve written down my thoughts on how existing mechanisms could be improved and reframed and provided some resources if you want to dive deeper into the topic. Looking forward to your comments, have a nice end of the week and hopefully a relaxing holiday!

As educational developers, our work revolves around supporting teachers. We design workshops, act as thought partners, build communities, and create opportunities for professional growth. It is a rewarding role, built on the idea of service and support.

At the same time, we often encounter the limits of what we can achieve. The more educational developers I meet at conferences, the more I realise that we are perhaps among the kindest and most generous communities within academia. We invest considerable time and energy into supporting others. Yet participation in many of our initiatives remains relatively limited. Perhaps around 20% of teaching staff (what I call “the usual suspects”) consistently engage with what we offer. The remaining majority often, sadly, remain outside this ecosystem.

When we ask colleagues why they do not engage more, the most common answer is time. The reality is, we make time for what we perceive to be important. First, professional development needs to feel immediately relevant to everyday teaching practice. Teachers are much more likely to engage if they can quickly see how an idea will improve their teaching. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, teaching and, with it, professional development must be valued within the broader institutional framework. If becoming a better teacher contributes to career progression or professional recognition, then institutions send a clear signal that teaching matters. This is the aspect I would like to focus on here: institutional recognition of teaching excellence.

Existing models

There are already many interesting examples of recognition schemes, particularly in Scandinavian countries and increasingly in the Netherlands. These can take different forms, most of them combining intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation. On the one hand, they acknowledge and celebrate excellent educators. On the other, they often provide tangible rewards such as promotion opportunities or salary progression.

Here are some of the existing models and initiatives in short (you can find more details and examples in the Resources below):

Pedagogical Merit model: mostly found in Scandinavian countries, this mechanism is usually independent of (and parallel with) the university’s formal academic career pathways. It is designed to reward academics who have had the most impact on the quality and culture of university teaching, regardless of their seniority or academic profile;
Rewards and recognition: a Dutch initiative that aims to create conditions for the diversification of academic career paths, whereby academics can, to a certain extent, “customise” their journey to focus on what matters most to them. Universities are currently having internal discussions, with the goal of implementing their own version of the policy;
Education- focused career track: increasingly present in UK, US or Australia, this model creates a specific track for academics who want to focus on education. While this can be a very appealing option for those who are committed to teaching excellence, it is unfortunately still perceived as a “lower status” career route, especially in universities where research excellence is the gold standard.

Is this enough?

Even though, in some universities, these mechanisms seem to have been successful, there are several issues that we cannot ignore.

While some models might sound very good on paper, the implementation on the ground often tells a very different story. A story of resistance (sometimes subtle, sometimes less so), a story of unnecessary bureaucracy, a story of “keeping business as usual”, as a path of least resistance. Among this kaleidoscope of stories, I also see quite a few limitations and missed opportunities within the existing recognition models.

The reward as an end goal

One limitation is that almost all recognition schemes focus on making the case for teaching excellence, by collecting evidence from past teaching experiences. The reward feels often like an end in itself. There is an enormous amount of work involved in preparing teaching portfolios and documenting educational achievements. As educational developers, we often support colleagues throughout this process. Yet once recognition has been awarded, the “after” phase remains largely unclear.

Do institutions continue investing in these educators? Do they receive formal responsibilities, greater influence, or opportunities to shape institutional teaching practice? Do recognised teachers have the potential to become educational leaders? And do they get support in this process? Or does recognition remain largely symbolic, ending with a certificate, a title, or perhaps, in the best case, a promotion?

I think we need to pay much more attention to what comes after recognition, if we want to create a sustainable practice and not act as a factory of symbolic awards.

The individual vs the collective

Another limitation concerns the strong emphasis on individual achievement. Individual teachers receive awards or recognition for their teaching performance, educational leadership, engagement with professional development, or contributions to education. By recognising individuals almost exclusively, institutions implicitly communicate that teaching excellence is primarily an individual accomplishment.

There is some truth in this. Teaching is often a more individual activity than research, where collaboration is much more common. Nevertheless, teaching is increasingly becoming a collaborative endeavour. Colleagues co-design courses, teach together, coordinate programmes, share assessment practices, and learn from one another. Recognition systems should reflect and encourage this reality.

What would happen if excellent teaching were recognised not only at the level of individual teachers but also at the level of teaching teams, programmes, or even entire departments? Rewarding collective educational excellence could create stronger incentives for collaboration, for conversations about teaching, for co-creation, and for ongoing learning. Many of these collaborative practices already exist, but often they remain informal and largely invisible. Because they are rarely recognised, they do not become central to institutional culture. Recognition schemes have the potential to change that.

How do we measure teaching excellence?

Finally, I think we also need to reflect carefully on the way of measuring teaching excellence and on the evidence these recognition schemes rely upon.

In terms of evidence of excellent teaching. I hope institutions move beyond relying primarily on student evaluations, which I consider a rather weak and unreliable measure when used on their own. Student feedback certainly has value, but it should be complemented by other forms of evidence: peer conversations, discussions with students beyond standard evaluation forms, reflective teaching portfolios, evidence of curriculum innovation, and other indicators of educational quality.

Alongside evidence of good teaching, I also believe recognition schemes should explicitly value engagement with professional development. Participation in educational development activities should count as evidence of commitment to teaching excellence. This would not only strengthen recognition schemes but would also encourage more colleagues to engage with professional learning opportunities.

Teaching recognition as a way to shape educational culture

For me, all this brings two important questions:

What happens after recognition has been awarded? If recognition simply results in a certificate, a salary bonus, or even a promotion, but does not create opportunities for educational leadership or broader institutional influence, then its impact on teaching culture may remain limited.
How can we achieve a balance between individual and collective recognition? By mainly rewarding individual achievement, recognition mechanisms miss a very important opportunity: that of promoting and showcasing a culture of collaboration and sharing in education.

I don’t think there is one miracle solution that will work across institutions. But I do believe that we need to be more bold when designing teaching recognition mechanisms. We need to think beyond them being an end in themselves and, instead, design them as milestones on the path to an academic culture that genuinely values education. Recognition mechanisms should be more future-looking, not simply rewarding past individual excellence. Let’s reward programme teams and departments, and also support them to keep performing in the future. Let this be a start of an education-minded community that, hopefully, in time and with substantive institutional support, will bring about the much-needed change in academic culture.