In engineering field, as I suppose,as in other fields, the synergy of both research and teaching is needed! Students should be active subjects in both!

http://depts.washington.edu/celtweb/

I love both. But because my primary function, and also my main source of income is that of a teacher, I have to prioritize the latter. For me research and instruction are an indispensable pair.

I would like to have both! Teaching is important for research as well. The only problem with teaching is overload. If there are a lot of students to teach, and you have to correct all these papers, then teaching becomes a tyranny! If however we have a balanced program then this is the best!

I agree with Costas. Research is more fun and interesting but a balanced program (perhaps teaching two courses in a semester + research) would be nice. The thing is sometime one has to teach more courses because of circumstances and fulfilling duties to the department.

Dear Abedallah, I enjoy both. I'll adore to be in the field research, making interviews, observations, field notes, analysing data as well as discussing issues with students on seminars. During classes we also do a lot of precise texts analysis (on deeper levels), with oral, written or even drama presentations.

...mum or daddy?

there is no research without teaching and nothing to teach without research

I think if I look deep inside me the answer is research because I enjoy exploring new worlds... but I like to share and to exchange ...

Dear Abedallah,

Efficiency of teaching depends on the attitude, ability, diligence, interests of the students. Teaching dull students is a pain or some may call it a challenge. Research even using instruments or facilities of a cave man is much more interesting: questioning the nature is fantastic!

I love both and ideally both will influence each other! I think that both should be well balanced at all time and this would coincide with the Humboldt ideal of unity of research and teaching. See the mission statement of the Humboldt University of Berlin:

http://www.hu-berlin.de/ueberblick-en/humboldt-universitaet-zu-berlin-en/mission-statement

I like both, but feel much comfortable in research. I think that the publication of own researches can be a kind of theaching, or at least a good compromise between strict research and strict teaching. Best regards from Italy.

It is a very difficult question. But definet

I used to unequivocally prefer research until enjoyed the fulfillment and/or joy of successful teaching!

Period!

It is a very difficult question. I teach classical mechanics and I always think of a long history of developments of this field and its future. I feel classical mechanics is not a established one and is not a well-understood subject. There always should be new findings, which affects my research theme. Therefore, I need a long time for understanding teaching and research. In addition, I should say that I feel difficulty of teaching because I and my students are just people.

Dear Abedalla

No. You should not separate them. I prefer both in proper mix. Teaching without research becomes stale. Research without teaching can be sustained to some extent, but a researcher gets more ideas and direction when he/she discusses the implications with students. Also students would provide a lot of help for research.

I personally prefer teaching as I want to be creative. New knowledge is always gratifying.

On the other hand, teaching is necessary. A good researcher should like to share his/her research results and expeirence and these enhance teaching and convey confidence to students --- students would have more confidence in teacher who are also researchers.

Conversely, teaching helps provoke thoughts on existing knowledge and may lead to new research ideas.

The two are complementary. In my view, they should both be practised by academics.

In engineering field, as I suppose,as in other fields, the synergy of both research and teaching is needed! Students should be active subjects in both!

http://depts.washington.edu/celtweb/

Research or teaching?

Sir, these are two different fields. One should be a teacher or researcher depends on his aptitude, way of expressing and delivering knowledge. It is not necessary that a good researcher can be a good teacher also and vice versa.

But if a teacher is also a good researcher then it would be like a shining diamond. Such a person can excel in his field too far and his students also.

So ideally there should be a mix of teacher and researcher qualities but unfortunately it doesn't happen in many of the cases.

Its a good question.....

And one can not separate teaching and research with each other. I have a different view on this and I prefer research more then teaching.

As per my understanding "A good teacher cannot be a good researcher or vice versa"

In my view, teaching and doing research are complementary. However, during our early carrier we are young and very energetic and so prefer more on teaching. As time evolve we get older and our tendency goes toward research.

Research will teach to everywhere at any time.

Here is a good resource, fine book that treats the issue!

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-007-2730-4_3

For me, teaching is a luxury in current Greece, so I have for the moment only the research option. Ask me again after a year, please...!

teaching more than research but I like them both

Both are interesting...

Taaching and research are two sides of the same coin, you must love both if you would like to work at the University.

Teaching is in my blood; I teach, therefore I am. If I am supposed to choose only one between teaching and doing research, of course I will choose the former. However, considering a long period of time, I always cannot teach exactly the same things which I had thought in the beginning. So to give a good lecture, indeed, I need to study and research and add new findings to the content of my lecture.

From the other hand, it is worth stressing that only to be interested in one of teaching or doing research is not sufficient to choose one of them as a carrier. For instance, some people are good researchers, but not good lecturers. They can create a progress in science, but they are not able to transfer their knowledge and vice versa.

For every educational field (Stylistics, Methodology, scenarios of collective events, scenarios of religious events, micro-macro educational space, gifted students, poor students, English etc) I tried and try to work out my own pedagogical conception. Research is required.

Research is required and teach is necessary, all the knowledge adquired during investigation is not only for myself, I feel the necessity to share with my students and my research fellows or colleagues, my findings. Teach is not only give lectures and evaluate the students, teach is much more and every researcher when sharing his findings are teaching.

The research is more interesting in some ways. Teaching is interesting in other respects. And these activities can be carried out with complementarity.

As my ante-responders pointed out, research and teaching are related and one may request the other as a scientific utility; priority over time is related to this utility. Focusing strictly on the question, which is about preference, I would say that research has a strong antropocentric nature and teaching is entirely antropocentric, so talking about preference is perfectly justified. Psychologically speaking, there may be several criteria on the basis of which one would prefer one or another at a certain moment. Many of them are related to satisfaction, which could be subjective (something like scientific vanity in case of research) or objective (the social effects and the level of knowledge in case of teaching, or filling a gap through a scientific contribution in case of research), other may be related to different mental states.

I interested in both teaching as well as doing research

I could say both, but when it comes to priority I would prefer research. .!!

Definitely both. I agree with Professor Drossos that both teaching and research are important. In fact, from my point of view, research and teaching have a symbiotic relationship (reciprocal) : the one reinforces and aids the other. A class taught by a researcher will gain strength from the insights (about a topic) stemming from the results obtained from the research. And the questions asked by students serve as indicators of interesting paths to follow in the research.

I agree with most of you. Research is more interesting than teaching; they complete each other.

Of course the two options, teaching and research fascinates me and excites me.

As for me, I prefer research.

I teach in a management institute, where all four things go on: teaching, research, consulting and training of managers. Actually I do all the four and like to do all four.

But honestly, I enjoy teaching more. When I do research, there is always uncertainty till it is acceptable as per the peer review process. So when the research is published in a good journal, it is highly gratifying.

The benefit of liking all the four is that I am able to inform my teaching, consulting and training by own experience of research

Teaching needs preparation of courses, exercises, exams, and papers corrections. it requires a full time students sustain and orientations and in some cases particular courses to the feeblest among them. A teacher could join a research team in a particular subject for degrees students supervision.

Research work is a full involvement into one or more projects, it needs data analysis, team work organization, may be more funding search, experimental setup montage, deep experimental analysis and many times many repetitions of experiments, traveling for coordination or cooperation or information collection, conferences, publications, reviewing, editions, etc... many times supervisions of young researchers or phd students joined to the projects..

So I don't think that we could be a good teacher and a good researcher in the same time when we are involved in both.

Both are interesting but little bit dissimilar in their functions.

Personally i prefer research work with student's interaction, and few classes in workshop format

I do both, and I think I am good in both. In spite of that, I am more interested in researching than teaching.

Both

Dear Abedallah

Very good question that should even be statisticaly analyzed (and I am sure some of our esteemed colleagues, including yourself, are more than qualified for designin a proper test).

In my perspective I follow the above comment by Professor Drossos: both are essential.

A good reseracher should lear how to communicate properly and lecture his/her science and a good teacher should also be a researcher.

Many thanks for sharing this fine question.

Best regards,

JP

Dear Abedallah

I prefer to teach because the interaction is constant, diverse and more embracing

Dear @Prof. Kamal, they really do promote each other. I also think that academician should also be able to do administration and services like counseling, Surgery, and volunteering. Thank you for enlarging the horizon of our discussion.

research and teaching ligands each other; in classroom career there is a requirement for research, Researcher and teacher can make various choice in the future to build a system for knowledge base for teaching.

After 20 years of teaching ,sometimes i feel that i am a little tired of teaching.In that moment i focus on research more and after a while i am ready again to teach!! I realy like both.They complete each other and make me happy.

Teaching based upon ones adventures in research is in my opinion the best way of passing knowledge to eager and highly robust minds of students and hence increases the probability for improvement of current solutions in any field

The Research become more important but they must be based on a good education system. Finally, you must develop the area of knowledge.

Thank you @Raneem, @Farhad, @Jaybalan, @Ioan, @Esteven for sharing your ideas and thoughts. As @Prof. Taiar said: Very interesting exchange through the different points of view!!

Dear @Prof. J. Macías-Díaz: Enjoy playing your violin and reading new and challenging academic music; surly, this will lead to high standard levels of research and teaching.

Specifically, I love teaching for the following reasons:

1. While research in my context is optional, for teaching you have to remain up to date so as to get the respect of the students. This covertly forces me to read extensively and the most modern developments in the subject. I find this fascinating.

2. Another reason due to which teaching excites me is that you remain with young, enthusiastic minds all your life. I am always of the view that most students remain hungry for knowing more. I find this very fulfilling.

3. In my institution there is no bureaucracy in the matter of syllabi updation, unlike in the University of Delhi where I taught for a long time, where sometimes courses were not updated even during two decades. In MDI, we just have to present the new course to the faculty council, which critically evaluates the proposal, and suggests improvements or may ask us to drop the course for good reasons.

4. In the Indian culture, teacher's status is considered as close to God. Students are very respectful to teachers; still more so if they like the teacher's way of teaching, and after-the-class advising. This is added reason.

5. Every year, we have one or two outgoing students, saying that you have been helpful in changing her/his life, this gives a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

I think both are important. However, researching can be more interesting due to find new things. Besides, teaching is good for reviewing our knowledge.

Dear @Debi Saini, your answer is fascinating, you remain young, enthusiastic minds all your life; nothing can be better than teaching.

Dear @Mohammad Azadi, you are right, teaching is good for reviewing our knowledge.

Thanks Adedallah, Indeed, I am proud to be in this profession, which I love. During the last 10 years I must have got some 15 plus offers to become some director or some administrative job in some institute, and at salary 2 to 3 times the money that I get now, but I never considered such offers even once.

I think both are important. I am prefer research and teaching after it

Dear Debi, it is good to do what you like and love.

Dear Dear Abedallah

I believe that those who really have the opportunity to do what they like are blessed people. I truly feel blessed to be in this professions.

But I agree that Kamal is right, teaching and research are complementary and go together. I love researching especially for the reason that i am able to use it for my teaching.

I enjoy doing research, I love teaching.

"In teaching others we teach ourselves." But In the case of a choice between research and teaching, I select research.

Dear Kamal You have the wonderful competency of summarizing things in simplest and most impactful words. How beautifully said. This fully applies to higher education.

I have seen that the students love it when you buttress your teaching with your own as also with others' research.

Dear Liudmila

What you said in these words, "In teaching others we teach ourselves." is so beautiful and true. Someone has rightly said, the best way to learn is to teach. In the contemporary learning organization discourse, employers are creating conditions that everyone is learning, and everyone is teaching. I am attaching a PPT in this regard.

Thank you @Debi for describing @Kamal's words: "You have the wonderful competency of summarizing things in simplest and most impact-full words. How beautifully said." I did not find any compact form to describe @Kamal's statement: "Teaching is a research in special format and research is a teaching in special format". Thanks for both of you and for @Liudmila for bringing new dimension for the discution: "In teaching others we teach ourselves."

Thanks to all for the interesting discussion and comments !

Very INTERESTING discussion !

Dear @Saed, yes, it is very interesting discussion. Thanks for all of you.

Thanks to all for the interesting discussion and comments ! Especially thank Ludmila for the beautiful words:"In teaching others we teach ourselves."

Yes @Christina, that is a point, after doing heavy research you come back to teaching with energy.

Very excellence discussion in some developing country most of lecturer teach more than the research. As the imbalance proportion between students and lecturer. In other hands some lecturer in my country doesnt iffen see the benefit of research in money or to the way they lecture. Some have 40 hours of lecturing and neglecting their research to the heavy load of teaching.

Optionally it goes more to teaching rather than research.

For my self i found things that intresting and joyfull in research and reflected on my teaching and reflect the way i teach as a source for my research.

Yes @Dony, the overload issue prevents teachers from doing research.

Research as well as Teaching

Dear Dony

You are so very right. In developing countries research is in a way seen as luxury. Despite that some people have to work day and not in research because of their In interest in it.

In my institute there is an incentive scheme for paying more to faculty members who do more work i.e. teaching, training, consulting, research. So every act of the faculty is measured for the purpose of incentive payment. But if one is not able to do at least 2/3 of the minimum expected load from teaching/training, s/he is not entitled to get the excess payment. This is quite understandable as in case of non-public institutes like mine, money mainly comes from teaching.

Dear @Debi, yes this is one of the problems of the developing countries: research is seen as luxury.

In China, some universities allow the successful investigators to get cash as a small percentage of the total grant value as an incentive. Some also award cash to publications in high impact journals.These incentive measures indeed help produce more high quality publications and more research grants but also tempt a very small number of researchers to commit academic misconduct. So these are a double-edged sword.

In contrast, in University of Liverpool (and other British universities), we do not get even a penny from a research grant or a publication in high impact journals.

Being an Engineer, I like both because teaching will enhance my theoretical knowledge and research will enhance my practical knowledge.

Regards,

Nitish

Ideally, as an academic organization grows, it must gradually switch focus on research, as accreditation, customer-centricity, and university brand depend upon the research contribution of the organization concerned.

In private organizations as well as PPTs (public private universities) to which the whole world is now seems to be moving, research would be a victim till we are able to provide them such regulations that do not hinder their capability to raise financial resources.

China is an excellent example in this regard. Many Chinese universities have well realized need for such change of focus, and are catering to these needs much more scientifically.

Many people working academia have observed that some research-active staff tend to favour teaching at the expenses of teaching. Academics in research-active universities get promotion mostly based of research performance. This policy steers people to give more time to research. Increasingly there is a divide between research-active staff and teaching-heavy staff. This has caused the decline of teaching quality.

Some professors in top universties do not teach or teach very little. A large amount of their teaching work is taken on by their postdoctoral researchers. I heard this happens in Harvard. Some students here feel their taught programmes are not of top quality.

Dear prof. Debi,

Yups problems lays over developing country, though our MOE enforce research as part of lecturer activity. Problem come also with university that doesnt take part or related with industrial needs, comersialitation of education is parts of concern where lack of lecturer and surplus of students give more benefit for teaching rather than research. Institution doesnt give incentive for research seminar or conference. Thats why researcher here have to figure it out to have grant or donation directly to industry.

Other cases of the surplus, many lecturer teach in many university so they dont have time to do research or other ways they think its easier to lecture rather than research where they have to think more and have more time.

In other word easier in comfort zone rather than challenge yourself through research.

Dears @Debi and @Dony, there is a problem with the aims of the universities in the developing countries, is it teaching or research university.

Yes preparation of courses, exercises ans exams need search, upgrade and compilation of the knowledge to be lectured. OK, it is a form of research.

However I think that best research in academia, could be related to the pedagogy item, the cognition process, the transfer methods and tools of the knowledge to students and their feed back. The philosophy of the science lectured, and the organizational framework of the pedagogy and its connection with cultural behavior are needed as well.

So do teachers have enough time and personal energy to be good teachers and supervisors, and good researchers advancing the pedagogy and the university horizons.And in the same time good researchers for industry or science engineering advance or high research protocols??

I think we must be sincere, a day is 24 h no person could have more energy to expand it. So if one focus on a job, (s)he must do it reasonably and efficiently. People who like teaching must advance the university philosophy, the knowledge acquisition and transfer methods and tools according to social and economic needs and the human resources organization (since university is the first provider for a nation of qualified human resources ) and collaborate in the science knowledge engineering when possible

People who like research must be focused on science knowledge advance, engineering tools and methods progress, high research protocols, development and finding of new knowledge, new science, new industry and technology, new theories...etc...

May be some researchers could give few lectures and some teachers could be joined into some high research programs. But each of them couldn't focus totally in his/her career on the 2 equally, he/she must choose; It is a pragmatic question of time, specialization in academia or research doing and human energy !!!

I have to share my time between research and teaching. Sometimes appears a good group os students that really makes more easy and interesting to give lectures. Sometimes not. Both of them are important for me.

Dears @Fairouz and Jaime, Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience; it is not easy to practice both teaching and research.

Research

The question is how does a student become researcher . During the initial phase of his undergraduate & postgraduate studies , the researcher has to have a strong background of theory & practice of his subject . It is during this period , he would opt for a career in research , highly influenced & motivated by his teachers . Unless the teacher is a researcher of repute , he cannot motivate young minds . Therefore , unless the researcher is a teacher , he cannot identify talent & skills of future students fit for a career in research . It is a fact that many students may not opt for a career in research , but the motivation to stimulate the individual creativity is entirely the responsibility of the teacher . Therefore , I feel it is the responsibility of the researcher to also teach . Research is a timeless ongoing process & on retirement the researcher , should have his post filled by a competent young person , who should excel him ! .

Dear @Singh, I agree with you that "The student should opt for a career in research , highly influenced & motivated by his teachers ."

Agree with you @Singh and @Abedallah. University is the first provider of future researchers, engineers, as well as future teachers, and different qualified people for industry, economic, politic, management, health and judicial spheres. I think the role of teachers is primordial for the nation's human resources competency. Teachers have the responsibility in the orientation of their students according to their skills and personalities. A student who shows disposition for being a good researcher, must be helped towards this direction, the same for students showing good disposition in teaching and the ones who have disposition for being businessmen/women..etc...

During the phase of preparation and supervision of future researchers, supervisors must focus on advanced methods of knowledge compilation, experimental setups, data interpretation and analysis, communications, publications, research management...etc.

Preparing a degree under a supervisor who corrects the dissertation and who prepares the publication if needed do not guarantee that the student will be a good researcher by his/her own work. May be University aim and philosophy need to be reviewed especially in developing world.

Dear @Fairouz, If possible to separate then a student who shows disposition for being a good researcher, must be helped towards this direction, the same for students showing good disposition in teaching and the ones who have disposition for being businessmen/women.

Dear @Abedallah, I don't mean separating them, but making environments, procedures and programs oriented for each of them. A student who is with no doubt a future researcher needs special lectures and classes than who wants to be a businessmen/women who needs other skills and lectures. It will be more interesting if specializations are oriented earlier from undergraduate level. For example a student could be associated earlier with research labs and research projects in parallel to his c lasses, why he must wait for phd degree to meet with research world??the same for the future teacher, student could be associated to his teachers in courses preparation and evaluation, may be giving certain lectures for new students and in research projects oriented knowledge scheduling and information processing.

My opinion is if university' s role is to provide different human resources skills for market and administrative employment, it should makes the specialization at the beginning of the studies. Being a researcher is not a hobby but a profession, and as all professions it must have its program of study, which couldn't be bordered or reduced in a preparation of a dissertation or a survey of one particular chapter.

For high research institutions, an academe or high society of scientists and researchers 'or academie des sciences et des lettres ou societe savante' is more suitable than a university,school or college format alone

Dear @Fairouz, Thank you for your feedback. In many universities at the first degree level, in general, it is not possible to find out who is interested in research and who is interested in teaching. If the students are ready to be classified then this is great.

After many years, I spent in researching and teaching at my University, guess when I felt proud of my results.

I felt very proud when a lady approached to me, during the granting of diplomas my older son. She asked me whether I know her. I shrugged with my shoulders, and said no. She said that she was a student of mine, too many years ago, and she remembered me as a teacher who “discovered” many secrets "craft" of programming to her. Now she is professor at the University at which my son graduated.

Even though I had many nice results in the research, however I vote for the teaching...

Dear @Ljubomir, this is a gift after years of very hard working; you deserve it.