Network meetings
Since 2016, the Advancing Teaching network has hosted regular meetings that bring together university leaders, institutional change agents and educational experts with a shared mission to improve the recognition and reward of university teaching. These invite-only meetings are designed to extend and support the global network of universities engaged in systemic reform of how they evidence, recognise and reward teaching achievement. They allow participants to share insights into the change process, including the challenges of changing academic cultures, evidencing teaching achievement and aligning national frameworks. These meetings have also been a spring-board for many of the new activities developed through the Advancing Teaching initiative, such as the Teaching Cultures Survey and the Global Mapping study. Further detail on each meeting is given below.
Most recent meeting: 2025
The 2025 meeting was held at the Copenhagen campus of Aalborg University on 1st and 2nd October 2025. The meeting brought together 56 participants from 17 countries (representing 36 universities and two higher education organisations/agencies).
Day one explored the findings from the recent Teaching Cultures Survey as well as the progress made in defining, evidencing and evaluation university teaching. Day two focused on redesigning academic career pathways, rewarding collegiality, and enabling institution-wide culture change.
Agenda
Information about the two-day meeting, including its aims, focus, agenda, speakers, and location
Slides
Slides presented by participants to the two day meeting (password protected)
Participant list
List of meeting participants, including links to relevant activities and projects
Previous meetings
King's College London, UK, Netherlands: October 2025
The 2024 meeting was held at King's College London on 24th and 25th October 2024. The meeting brought together 55 participants from 14 countries (representing 39 universities and four higher education organisations/agencies). A selection of photos from the two days are given here.
Day one explored the findings from the recent Global Mapping of the movement for change to the reward of university teaching as well as the progress made in advancing education-focused roles and the ways in which university teaching is defined and evaluated.
Day two focused on challenges faced by universities making changes to reward systems, as well as national and global collaborations for change.
Agenda
Information about the two-day meeting, including its aims, focus, agenda, speakers, and location
Slides
Slides presented by participants to the two day meeting (password protected)
Participant list
List of meeting participants, including links to relevant activities and projects
Trippenhuis, Netherlands: June/July 2022
The first in-person meeting of the Advancing Teaching network since 2019 was held on 30th June and 1st July 2022 at the Trippenhuis (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) in Amsterdam. 55 participants from 10 countries (representing 30 universities and six national higher education agencies) participated.
Day one explored the progress made by the global community, how institutional processes can be used as levers for change, and national collaborations to drive coordinated and systemic reform.
Day two focused on challenges faced by universities making changes to reward systems, as well as findings from the Teaching Cultures Survey 2022.
This meeting was sponsored by a Dutch consortium (including the Dutch Ministry of Education, the Comenius network, the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education and the VSNU)
Agenda
Information about the two-day meeting, including its aims, focus, agenda, speakers, and location
Slides
Slides presented by participants to open each of the six sessions for the two day meeting (password protected)
Participant list
List of meeting participants, including links to relevant activities these individuals are engaged with
Royal Academy of Engineering, London: May 2019
The fourth university partners' meeting was held on 13th and 14th May 2019 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London. 50 participants from 14 countries (representing 29 universities) participated.
Day one explored the drivers for change and the key steps in the institutional reform process, as identified by the Roadmap for Change study, including the challenges and opportunities often faced.
Day two focused on three specific topics identified by participants as being of particular interest: (i) aligning institutional reward systems with individual career development and appraisal; (ii) evaluating the impact of reform; and (iii) integrated approaches to changing reward and recognition systems. The interim findings from the 2019 Teaching Cultures Survey were also presented.
This meeting was sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK.
Royal Academy of Engineering, London: April 2018
The third university partners' meeting was held on 19th April 2018 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London, the day before the Framework was launched on 20th April. 37 participants from 12 countries participated.
The agenda was structured around four key dimensions of the change process:
- building and maintaining consensus for change;
- reforming academic appointment and promotion systems;
- instituting change outside the formal university promotion system;
- sustaining improvements in the recognition and reward of teaching achievement.
This meeting was sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK.
Royal Academy of Engineering, London: April 2017
The second partners' meeting was held on Friday 28th April 2017 at the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) in London. The meeting was attended by representatives from 14 partner universities from 14 countries.
The meeting aimed to:
- discuss ambitions and experiences regarding the reform of university promotion and career development systems to better evaluate and reward teaching achievement
- support the development of an international community of dialogue between change leaders striving to improve the recognition of university teaching
- help improve the Career Framework for University Teaching for the evaluation of teaching achievement in university appointment, promotion and professional development systems
This meeting was sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK.
Royal Academy of Engineering, London: Feb 2016
On Thursday 25th February 2016, representatives from ten of the partner universities met at the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) in London. They were joined by a small group of individuals with particular expertise in the evaluation and recognition of university teaching, many of whom acted as external reviewers during the development of the draft Framework. This meeting was sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK.
The meeting aimed to:
- establish an international community of dialogue between individuals and institutions striving to improve the recognition of university teaching
- discuss experiences and share ideas for reforming university promotion systems, as well as provide specific feedback about the Career Framework for University Teaching
- pave the way for broader cross-institutional agreement about the recognition of teaching, such that these achievements could be ‘portable’ and recognised between universities in a similar way to research achievements
