Last updated 30 March 2023

Imperial recognises the important contributions made by members of the Learning & Teaching and Research job families to the delivery of its mission. Having revised the pay structures for both Teaching and Research staff in the last five years, Imperial committed to further review of the job titles and the terms and conditions within these job families to ensure that our overall package for reward and recognition is attractive and competitive.

A cross College working group has undertaken a review of both the Research and Teaching job families. The Group has also conducted a review of how fixed-term contracts are used within the College.

Working Group Terms of Reference

The purpose of the Group is to discuss and feed into the areas below, in order to inform the Board’s decisions on the following:

• Review of the current Learning & Teaching role criteria, the promotion process, and the development of criteria for the new Level 7 equivalent role.
• Review of the job titles within the Learning & Teaching, and Research job families.
• Review of the Research job family role criteria and the promotion process to identify any gaps that may impact on career progression, in addition to proposing options on how to approach these.
• Review if the enhanced terms and conditions offered to academic staff could also be extended to all job families - these include recognition of previous HEI/NHS service for maternity/family leave; and for teaching and research staff, a percentage of time allocated for scholarships and sabbatical leave.
• Review the use of fixed-term contracts for all job families.

The Group is co-chaired by Professor Peter Haynes, Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) and Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise).

The Working Group made recommendations, and the Academic Strategy Committee and University Management Board have agreed that the changes below be implemented: 

• Introduce 10 professional development days for Teaching Fellows from 1 August 2023.
• Implement new role profiles for the Teaching and Research job families which underpin revised generic job descriptions and person specifications from 1 September 2023.
• Implement a new career progression framework for the Teaching and Research job families, with effect from the 2024 promotions round.  The existing process will remain in place for Teaching staff until the Autumn of 2023, and for Learning staff until further notice.
• Assign a new job title, ‘Principal Lecturer (Teaching)', to Level 6 teaching fellows from September 2023, with transition arrangement of existing titles for those already at the grade.
• Open up recruitment to the level 7 equivalent Teaching role, which will be titled Professor of Teaching in XXX (where XXX is the Department or Discipline) from September 2023. Allow staff to progress to this level when the new progression framework is developed and implemented.
• Remove spine point 19 from the Teaching salary scale from 1 August 2023.
• Undertake further work in Phase III to review Learning Technologists, Research Software Engineers, Instrument Specialists and staff employed long-term on grant/project funds from October 2023.  Terms and conditions and membership will be published in due course.

A further review has been commissioned of the job titles and progression process for the Academic job family and the interplay between the Research and Teaching job families’ job titles including  details of practical steps for the progression process.