What constitutes scholarship in the Arts and Humanities? A Faculty Approach
Alba del Pozo García, Director of Scholarship, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies
Laetitia Monbec, Director of Scholarship, Language Centre
On Wed 5th February 2025, PRIA (Pedagogic Research in the Arts) organised an event to discuss What constitutes scholarship in the Arts and Humanities? Speakers included Edward Venn (Director of PRIA), Sascha Stollhans (Pro-Dean for Student Education) and Matthew Treherne (Pro-Dean for Research and Innovation).
The aim was to begin a faculty-wide conversation about definition and expectations around scholarship. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities launched its Vision and Strategy for 2025-2030, titled "Inspiring Futures, Shaping Societies," at the end of 2024 where scholarship has a prominent role in our student education endeavours.
Section 2: Student Education emphasizes the importance of scholarship, ongoing pedagogic research, and effective data use in developing student education initiatives.
Section 3: Research integrates research and scholarship within an inclusive, equitable, and diverse environment, aiming to maximize their quality and impact while aligning them with student opportunities.
However, while research expectations are clear within Faculty and School cultures, the concept of scholarship (including Pedagogic Research, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and disciplinary-based educational research) is less understood. Scholarship has historically occupied a less relevant position, often due to using research as the standard norm for comparison. This lack of clarity puts those involved in scholarship at a disadvantage, particularly in developing research cultures and supporting staff in their scholarship work.
Showing the timeliness of this event and colleagues’ concerns, the event attracted a healthy representation of colleagues from across the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies and the Language Centre. In the last years, colleagues across LCS have been widely engaging with scholarship. While this situation originates in the contractual nature of language teaching colleagues, the School has been able to shift the situation and support scholarship through different initiatives. For example, the Centre of Excellence in Language Teaching, the appointment of Directors of Scholarship, or processes in place to award a 20% workload allocation to develop scholarship projects.
During the event colleagues discussed whether it was necessary to provide definitions of scholarship. While a definition can help shaping expectations about professional practice, it was also acknowledged that it can limit the potential, and it risks scholarship becoming the ‘poorer sibling of REF-able research’ (McEwan 2022). Instead, it was discussed how scholarship can be a field of activity stemming from active communities of practice, potentially empowering colleagues and students. As outlined seven years ago by Ding et al. (2018), we discussed how we see scholarship as oriented towards practice while grounded in theory, focused on implications for practice or stemming from practical issues. We also see it as privileged site to engage critically with institutional and higher education practices. Any strategy will also need to acknowledge the huge variety of practices, outputs, and approaches around scholarship that colleagues are already developing across the Faculty.
During the event, there was also the opportunity to discuss what lies ahead. A Faculty-wide working group might be soon further exploring the following questions: How to shape expectations and provide clarity around scholarship? What are the opportunities and support that colleagues would need to develop scholarship? Where does scholarship sit in a hierarchical structure that privileges REF and research? How can scholarship be strategic for career development? How can we design systems that foster innovation, impact, critique and collaboration?
These are just an example of some future challenges around scholarship. This event was a first step of what should be a series of exciting discussions.
References
Ding, A., et al. 2018. Manifesto for the Scholarship of Language Teaching and Learning. The Language Scholar. 3, pp.58-60.
McEwan, M.P. 2022. The Journey to SoTL: Institutionally Supporting a Transition to Scholars of Teaching and Learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 16(2), pp.1-8.