University departments and faculties are pivotal to the successful enactment of the TRN. The academic department is the focus of discipline-based curriculum planning, monitoring and review, and it is the place where critical resourcing decisions are made. Departmental policies and associated practices are key to the success of the TRN in universities.

While a university may articulate broad TRN goals, the foundation for success lies in the curriculum and the local level policies and practices that determine how students and staff together connect with and interpret disciplinary knowledge, values and practices.

The following five strategies are adapted from Jenkins and Healey (2005) and Jenkins et al. (2003, pp. 63-64). While the focus is on students connecting with teaching and research at the department level, it is also important to engage with and build the capacity of academic staff, including sessional staff. Each strategy has significant implications for academic leaders such as Heads of School, Deans (Learning and Teaching) and those who enact local policies, such as Program and Course Leaders.
 
Strategies for the TRN within courses and programmes

Strategy 1: Develop students’ understanding of the role of research in their discipline

• Develop the curriculum to bring out current or previous research developments in the discipline.
• Develop students’ awareness of the nature of research and knowledge creation in their discipline.
• Develop students’ awareness of learning from staff involvement in discipline research.
• Develop students’ understanding of how research is organised and funded in the discipline, institution and profession.

Strategy 2: Develop students’ abilities to carry out research

• Students learn in ways that mirror research processes.
• Assess students in ways that mirror research processes (e.g. requiring students to have their work assessed by peers according to the house-style of a journal before submitting it to you).
• Provide ‘training’ in relevant research skills and knowledge.
• Ensure students experience courses that require them to do research projects; and that there is a progressive move to projects of greater scale, complexity and uncertainty (see Strategy 3).
• Develop student involvement in research.
• Develop abilities of students to communicate the results of their research - in ways that are appropriate to the disciplinary community in which they are now participating.

Strategy 3: Progressively develop students’ understanding

• Ensure that introductory courses induct students into the role of research in their discipline and present knowledge as created, uncertain and contested.
• Ensure that advanced courses develop students’ understanding of research, and progressively develop their capacities to do research.
• Ensure that graduating year (capstone courses) require students to carry out a major research study and help them to integrate their understanding of the role of research in their discipline.

Strategy 4: Manage students’ experience of research

• Limit the negative consequences for students of staff involvement in research; most important here is managing the student experience of the days (and sabbatical terms) when staff are 'away' doing research.
• Evaluate students’ experience of research and feed that back into the curriculum.
• Support students in making clear to them the employability elements of research; this is particularly important for those students whose focus is on using a degree to get employment, and who may not otherwise appreciate the value of a research-based approach.

Strategy 5: Develop staff capacity to connect discipline-based research and teaching

• Develop shared disciplinary and departmental understandings of teaching and research relations through regular staff discussions and professional development seminars on the subject.
• Make a point of collecting and sharing examples of good practice in the TRN within and across departments.
• Regularly gather and reflect on student feedback on their experiences with the TRN. Share findings with colleagues and close the loop by feeding back to students.
• Be sure to include sessional staff in departmental conversations about the TRN. Look for ways to encourage them to feature their research in the classroom, particularly if they are graduate students.

Questions for academic leaders and curriculum designers on the TRN within faculties and departments
Source: Zetter (2002) and Jenkins, Healey & Zetter (2007)

Curriculum and research-based learning

• What is your departmental (and disciplinary) understanding or conception of research ‘led’, ‘based’ or ‘informed’ learning?
• What forms of pedagogy and their assessment do you consider appropriate to support these conception
• Can you clearly identify where research-based learning is integrated in the programme?
• Where is current research in your field presented in the programme?  Check your:
  • programme design and programme outcomes
  • curriculum content and delivery in the modules
  • assessment methods
• Where are research methods/skills/ethics taught and practiced?  Is this progressive?  Is a variety of appropriate skills/methods delivered?
• Is the research knowledge/skills the student will have acquired made clear in the module learning outcomes?
• Can/do students participate in departmental research projects as eg research assistants?
• Where is the scope for students to conduct independent research in their programmes? and in what ways do the programmes allow progression?
• How are research skills and the links between teaching and research embedded in monitoring and review of modules and programmes?
• How are students supported in making explicit how this research training/knowledge supports their employability?
• How are undergraduate students made aware of postgraduate research opportunities?

Management, organisational structure and staffing at departmental level

• How does the department’s learning and teaching strategy articulate research and teaching/learning links?
• How does the department’s research strategy articulate teaching and research/learning   links?
• How are the teaching and research activities, organised, motivated and resourced?  Are they managed for mutual engagement?  Are (all) researchers involved in teaching?  How are ‘non-research active’ teaching staff mentored and encouraged to develop a research/scholarly profile, and valued for their particular contributions to the nexus?
• How do research teams and course teaching teams link with each other?  How are these links facilitated?
• Are research 'clusters' also 'teaching teams'?
• How are teaching staff ‘managed’ in developing research and/or scholarly capacity and vice versa?
• How are new staff acculturated into the department values and practices?
• How are incoming students acculturated into the department values and practices?
• How is the staff and student experience of the nexus monitored and the results fed back into policies and practices?

Inclusive culture
Developing the links between teaching and research requires cultural change too:

• What are the mechanisms for disseminating and communicating research outputs and teaching practice development in the Department?
• How is the research culture and activity given visibility to students?  How do students come into contact with departmental research?
• What are the strategies to disseminate research-based teaching experience from the module level?
• What profile is given to (discipline based) pedagogic research?  How is this research disseminated and applied in programmes?

And finally

• Allow for diversity
• Remember it is the individual’s scholarly engagement with her/his subject and how this is brought to their teaching and research setting which mediates the relationship between teaching and research.  You cannot tightly programme the nexus
• Recognise that the relationships between teaching and research are reciprocal.

Department-Level TRN Performance Indicators
Performance indicators will depend on departmental and institutional TRN policies. Some indicative performance indicators are listed below. They may be adapted according to your local policies and goals.

The success achieved in implementing TRN policy might be measured by the extent to which the following can be detected in teaching and learning activities.  Students will:

• understand how research within their disciplines leads to knowledge creation.
• be introduced to current research in their disciplines across all year levels.
• learn the methods used to carry out research in their disciplines
• be motivated to learn through knowledge of and direct involvement in research.
• carry out research in a range of ways and in a range of contexts.
• have the opportunity to participate in research conducted by their lecturers.
• learn and be assessed by methods that reflect research procedures in their discipline.
• learn how research is organised and funded.
• become members of a School /Department and University culture within which learning, research and scholarship are integrated.
• benefit from learning that is supported by systems and structures at departmental and institutional level that facilitate scholarship and research in the pedagogy of the disciplines as well as disciplinary scholarship and research (Adapted from Oxford Brookes University website, Linking Teaching and Research in the Disciplines. Accessed Feb 2008: www.brookes.ac.uk/genericlink/pedagogy/htm!).

Self-Review Framework to Guide Departmental TRN Policy and Practice
We have developed a self-review instrument for academics, institutional leaders and policy-makers with an interest in fostering informed discussion, decision-making, policy and practice in relation to the TRN in their university.

Its purpose is to:
•    raise awareness of the various dimensions of the teaching-research nexus (TRN) among key university staff groups.
•    propose an initial framework for development of TRN initiatives within institutions.

We envisage that you will select the focus areas and questions appropriate for your intended purpose and audience. When addressing these questions we encourage you to focus on the role of discipline-based research. However, where appropriate you may also wish to consider the important role of the scholarship of learning and teaching and pedagogical research.

Click here to download the self-review framework for department leaders.