Preparing Relevant Circumstances for Promotion (Achievement Relative to Opportunity)

Staff who have experienced personal, professional or other circumstances that have had an impact on their opportunities to pursue academic achievements can feel at a disadvantage in applying for academic promotion.  When preparing a case for promotion, staff should be careful not to overstate their situation; only claim genuine circumstances that can be supported by detailing the impact on research and research achievements, education and/or engagement and associated productivity.  Refer to section 6 of the Academic Promotion Application Instructions for Level C-E for further information.

Staff should provide the following in their case for promotion:

A.    A brief explanation of the type of personal, professional or other circumstance

Provide a brief summary of the circumstances. Staff are not required to describe specific details (such as the tasks undertaken as a primary carer).

Staff are not required to describe specific details about sensitive issues such as a medical illness where the staff members feels uncomfortable to do so. Where it is important to share sensitive details for the relevant circumstances to be accurately understood, the staff member can have a private discussion with the Chair or Chair’s Nominee. For Level B applications, this discussion would be with the approver(s).

B.    Nominate the period(s) of the disruption/circumstance (approximate dates)

For some staff, it may be useful to include a visual representation (such as a table) to assist the explanation. An example where this can be particularly effective is for a reduced (part time) fraction which has changed over the relevant assessment period (since appointment to current level). Staff can then easily link this to their answer in (c and/or d).

Example of reduced fraction

This shows that over a period of 3 years and 10 months (46 months), this staff member worked an equivalent of 31.4 months (approximately 2.6 years). The expectations of their performance can then be considered accordingly.

C.    Outline the impact this has had on research and research achievements, education and/or engagement and associated productivity relative to stage of career

Staff should focus this answer for the period of time being considered in the application (i.e., since their last promotion or appointment). If desired, briefly comment on the overall career history and trajectory in light of the opportunities available.

D.    Provide a positive acknowledgement of what has been achieved given the opportunities available

In addition to (C) above staff may wish to compare their own career achievements to benchmark data if this is available, on a pro-rata basis.

Staff may find a visual representation helpful. In the example below, a staff member employed on a reduced fraction over the relevant period of time can provide information on the number of publications produced during the same time frame. This enables decision-makers to assess achievement relative to opportunity by comparing the relevant faculty or discipline-specific research performance standards and outputs on a pro-rata basis. The decision makers recognise that this is a simplistic representation, since it is not just about quantity but also about quality, but it is a helpful start to adjusting expectations of ‘metrics’.

Visual example of performance (for reduced fraction included above)

Staff may link the table to the research performance metrics if this would help the explanation for how they are meeting expectations on a pro-rata basis.