Professor of Educational Sciences specialising in research on higher education - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Educational Sciences at Lund University

The Department of Educational Sciences was established in 2011 within the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology. Its responsibilities include the secondary school subject teacher training programme (both cohesive and supplementary teacher education, KPU) and the graduate school in educational sciences at Lund University. Since 2016, the Department also comprises the Division for Higher Education Development (AHU). AHU has a university-wide remit to conduct educational development work through training in teaching and learning in higher education for teaching staff and research supervisors, development projects in collaboration with various parts of the University, and research.

The department’s research activities cover the history of education, the sociology of schools, school and education research, the teaching profession, subject didactics and research in higher education. Higher education as a research field is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in nature and relationships and interactions between the micro, meso and macro levels as well as change processes are of particular interest. AHU’s research covers academic teaching and educational expertise, discourses on academic teaching staff and higher education, organisational development in higher education, educational leadership and the conditions for learning and supervision in research studies. Within the latter two subjects, AHU is a national leader and internationally recognised. At present, three of the department’s twelve doctoral students are working in the field of higher education and the staff at AHU also supervises doctoral students admitted to other higher education institutions.

Duties

The position includes conducting research, leading research collaborations both within the department and with external researchers, nationally and internationally, developing research applications individually and on behalf of the department, actively participating in the department’s joint research activities and supervising doctoral students. Furthermore, the holder of the position is to contribute to AHU’s training in teaching and learning in higher education and to teaching in the first, second and third cycles as well as to take part in educational development work. Administrative duties are also included in the position and the applicant should be prepared to take on academic leadership assignments as necessary.

Qualifications and assessment

A person who has demonstrated both research and teaching expertise shall be qualified for employment as a professor. The assessment criteria for appointment as a professor shall be the degree of the expertise required as a qualification for employment.

The successful candidate for the professorship should be considered to be among the leaders in the field of research and to have made important contributions to national and international research. As higher education is a broad and multidisciplinary field, the applicant should have good theoretical and methodological breadth, as well as experience from studies in different educational and subject contexts within higher education.

The position has a requirement of at least ten weeks’ training in teaching and learning in higher education in accordance with the recommendations of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) or that corresponding knowledge has been obtained in some other way.

The applicant is to be proficient in Swedish and English. If Swedish language skills are lacking on taking up the position, the professor is to have acquired Swedish language skills within two years to an extent that enables teaching in Swedish and participation in drafting and decision-making bodies within the university system.

 For the appointment of a professor, the following shall form the assessment criteria:

• a very good national and international standing as a researcher in which the requirement for international experience shall be assessed with consideration to the character and traditions of the subject specialisation
• a very good ability to conduct, develop and lead educational activities on different levels and using a variety of teaching methods
• a good ability to supervise doctoral students to achieve a PhD
• a good ability to engage with wider society and communicate their activities
• a good general ability to lead and develop activities

In addition to the above, the following are specific qualifications that should be thoroughly documented in the application:

• research on processes of change in higher education
• research on scholarship of teaching and learning, higher education development and conditions for teaching and supervision in third-cycle studies
• broad experience of higher education development from different educational contexts

In the assessment, equal consideration will be given to teaching expertise and research expertise.

Instructions for the application

The application must conform to the instructions that can be downloaded at
www.ht.lu.se/en/the-faculties/academic-vacancies/instructions-for-applicants. The applicant is responsible for making sure that the application is complete, in accordance with the vacancy announcement and instructions, and for submitting it to the University by the application deadline through the recruitment portal.

The Academic Appointments Board normally selects a shortlist of applicants. This selection can be done in one or several steps and if needed with the help of external experts. The applicants who are selected for external assessment may be invited to submit physical copies of the papers that they wish to submit for expert assessment within 14 days.

Conditions

The university applies individual salary setting.