Dear Paul, I think I cannot define it better than you have done it.. :-) Yes, in my opinion, being involved in teaching and doing research mutually reinforces both of them, thus resulting in growth in both of them. There should be however a balance. otherwise one may suffer due to the strong dedication to the other...

Dear Paul,

A good researcher may not be a good teacher, while a good teacher need not even be a researcher! Teaching is an art, not related to researches.

I agree Svetlozar that the two should feed into each other. However, I feel there is a tendency as ones research becomes more and more focussed for teaching and research to become more distant fro each other.

@ Hemanta, I think you are correct, but both can be improved by practice and rehearsing common ideas in teaching and research can be mutually beneficial. The problem as I see it is finding time and energy to do either the service they deserve.

Paul,

You are talking about educators at the university level, is that right. Then, teaching is not just an art it is a science too. We are in the twenty first century and a lot of changes had occurred. From a text or lectures' notes to e-highway of knowledge in few years flipped all old teaching methods. The educator has to present the principals and complex material to students in terms that are readily understandable. He/She has to enforce these knowledge by problem-solving sessions which might involve search. Looking for many modern curriculum you will find research project as a subject required for graduation. Thus, keeping balance between both teaching and research is a great idea for better educators. However, it depends on the high managements of the institution that should facilitate the research activities and make it enjoyable for both faculty and students.

Good luck

Yes it is a difficult task to manage both at time but it is required by changing world requirements. So teachers must have to involve themselves in research work along teaching so this will help them to keep knowledge updated

@ Adel, You are correct in all you say. For me the problems arise when teaching and administration are such a burdensome load that research time is so diminished so as to make it worthless.

I forgot to sat, yes, I am talking about university teachers.

@ Sadia, do you think that doing research is the only or even that best way for a teacher to keep themselves up dated in their knowledge?

Dear Paul,

My answer was with reference to University teachers. I have seen some very good teachers who hardly ever entered into researches. On the other hand, I have seen teachers who are constantly busy in attending conferences and seminars, totally neglecting their students; it is obvious that such people are bad teachers anyway.

I can provide some lights based by my own experience. I do feel that teaching is sort of burden when you are or you want to be a researcher. As a researcher you can and should often go to conferences and seminars, but teaching takes much time from you to do research.

I do love research, and I have been lucky enough to devote my life to it, rather than to teaching.

However, it is certainly not a matter of disposing teaching: at all! But the energy and produce are quite different. The attitude and the way living in each case are definitely different.

Besides my own case I could mention many cases that can illustrate my own argument and experience.

For me the two go hand in hand. As a researcher as you become more senior you will be teaching as part of supervision of people working with you but I see teaching as enthusing the researchers of tomorrow also. But I'm lucky, I enjoy both. What is essential is to play to your strengths. Even more important is to work in a department where both are valued and you are supported. Unfortunately it seems this is rarely the case: all departments have a financial imperative and squeezing as much as possible out of staff seems to be the norm. I have been lucky to work in departments where the head of department set the right tone, but have worked in departments where staff are just pawns to get the job done too. So I see the environment as the problem not inherently a problem of balancing teaching and research.

@ Hemanta, we have all had these sorts of experiences I think. I am especially interested however in how research and teaching can exist together. What do you think?

@ Carlos, it sounds to me that you feel that it is difficult to successfully combine research and teaching. I wonder if this is a product, to some extent, of the way in which teaching and research are set-up in higher education where the two activities are seen as being very different. Perhaps this is also different for different disciplines.

@Richard, you have hit the nail on the head I think. A lot depends upon where you work and you work at a great university (I was a research fellow there). However, places change (I am not talking about Cardiff) with changing financial and other social mores that surround these institutions. I think that the concept of training future academics is correct and what I have always seen myself as being involved in. However, I feel that this outlook is becoming less and less prevalent and tertiary education is becoming more and more like a simple extensions of secondary education.

@ Haider, I could not agree more with you and my question is how do you balance the two?

Teaching and research has to go hand in hand with university teaching. Teaching without research will be stale, particularly with technological subjects. So you have to balance your teaching with research. It depends on the university as to how much. Utilize your students to help with your research.

@Nageswara, you are correct I believe. Using students to help with my research is something I do a lot. I fell they benefit immensely from doing this too. How else do you balance the two?

Dear Paul,

As far as University teachers are concerned, it is their duty to continue researches, not just because publications are needed for promotions, but because without researches knowledge would not grow, and if knowledge gets static, a day will come when technology would take over and teachers might become redundant!

So the teachers must manage some time to do researches anyway. However, while doing researches, the teachers must not forget that their primary duty is to teach; doing researches can not be their primary duty, it has to be secondary. Some teachers tend to forget this point, and they end up being bad teachers.

Research and teaching indeed be two twin academic activities a scholar should do in higher and advanced graduate programs, unlike teaching in lower level programs where transfer of facts and knowledge which are already established are the main activity. Research is a necessity for academics in order to augment knowledge and narrow the gap between what are established and known and what are unknown in the unbounded horizon to analyze and solve problems more effectively. It is research which is a vehicle to transform society to a better future.

In some cases mixing teaching and research can be a challenge:

1. If teaching load is too high and course diversity is too high. Preparing courses, quizzes, midterms, assignments, course-files, reports, and all sorts of education related activities can consume the time and energy up o the point where research is just done to check university requirements.

2. If administrative duties are too high, chiefs of departments, deans and higher level officials administrative, usually the highest rank academics, have little if any time left to do research.

3. University resources allocation, especially during, or because of budget cuts, may channel education resources towards research. This has negative effects on education.

I totally agree that research and education should be mixed, but from what i know so far, in most universities research resources are scarce compared to needs, and management of research is unrealistic. So far universities mostly demand research results, but rarely provide the means for them in terms of time, money, infrastructure, and organizational support.

One misguided conception is that publication of research is the measure of results. That is the main reason for failure to connect to industry needs and mobilize demand for research.

From a different perspective research can have a negative effect on teaching:

1. Exacerbating demand for research results can shift the focus of professors from teaching to research. This is a negative effect of targeting rankings results based on science measurements.

2. Shifting money from students fees to financing of research. If a wage of a professor is financed by students fees, and the work is focused on science, the service provided to students has a diminished value. In terms of work-hours, research work-hours are funded by students based income, either public or private.

3. Because of the scarcity of resources universities can increase and diversify teaching load to free funds required for research funding, thus diminishing the effectiveness of division of labor and specialization require for quality education.

I may be "the devils advocate" but, in my experience there are people that have a great talent for research and no talent for teaching and great teachers that are unable to generate one original idea.

To conclude, striking a effective balance between research and education is a tricky thing to do. Too much shift toward research, and education will suffer, too much shift towards education and the research will suffer. And policy makers, need to be extremely realistic when they set up the goals, otherwise the university will end up being severed from society needs and as a consequence endangered.

Dear Paul

When I was working in the previous university, teaching and research are given equal importance. So my time was divided between research and teaching as 50% each. But research is considered more important because it was counted for everything. So I was concentrating on research most of the time. We were teaching two courses and since many of them are directly related to my specialization, the amount of time that I had to spend for teaching is considerably less. Also we were not really changing courses taught very often which also helped. There was good amount of support available in the labs (lot of experimentation) from students, research staff and lab staff, so that I could concentrate on the main research and delegating and supervising a lot of work through help system. That is how many of my publications will have multiple authors who were helping me.

Dear Paul, in my personal take, I think the difference is stronger when we focus on more abstract disciplines. I agree with your suggestion in that probably in more applied fields the gap is not so strong or real. Say, management, micro-economics, and other related fields, f.i.

Balancing research and teaching becomes a serious problem in abstract disciplines, it appears. The point hence is between producing science-trying to produce it, on the one hand, and socializing spearhead science.

Of course, I do mean to trace a sharp and absolute opposition, though.

There must be a balance between teaching and researching, although researching is more important for faculty staff promotion and for their advancement.

Dear Paul, this is a great question.

My experience is that it can be difficult to balance the two. It also depends what your university expects. When I started I was told that research was more important than teaching, although good teaching evaluations were important. I was told that promotion depended on research outcomes. And I was told publish or perish - preferably publishing in the highest ranked journals with the best impact factors. I was told not to prioritise teaching and not to write textbooks. But in the new world of universities being businesses, there is also a demand that we meet the needs and expectations of our customers (our students). I personally have found that it is possible to turn teaching into research (the scholarship of teaching) and research into teaching - by bringing my research into the classroom - which my students really value. Fortunately I ignored much of the early advice that I was given. I have just published my first textbook at a time when my university has decided to prioritise teaching. I am listed in the top 10% of teachers at my university too. But I have been strategic in advancing a research agenda as well. My h-index is comparatively high in my field and my most-cited publication is in a top-ranked journal. I have worked in partnership with my PhD students to advance a research agenda, thus improving my and their publications. And they in turn have helped me with my teaching - as tutors and teaching assistants. Last, I have formed close relationships with other scholars - seeing them as collaborators, not competitors, and together we have been able to boost each others publications in ways I could not do by myself. I became an academic because I enjoy research, but I have found that it is possible to teach AND do research in a rewarding way. And my university is now promoting people for doing great research, great teaching and great service - so it does not have to be research only.

if the teaching work load is too much, there won't be enough time and energy to focus on research. I remember my work load as a lecturer during my doctoral studies was a challenge to my research. I had to always stay in the office till 11pm or 12am daily so as to catch up with my doctoral research.

For effective research, teaching work load should be moderate.

Paul: It's not a problem for me. I teach four courses every semester so my teaching schedule is set from the beginning. Then I have 10 office hours per week scheduled to meet with students and conduct advising. I also serve on two university committees which meet three or four times per semester. So, I have to conduct research around my four courses, committee meetings, and 10 office hours. I try to schedule one or two hours per week at the same day & time to conduct research like every Tuesday from Noon to 2:00 m. That seems to work for me.