What are the expectations for promotion to professor (social sciences)?

[NippyBarwell]

I am in early stages of planning my next move upwards. Would be interested in people's experiences of the above. I am in social sciences at a post-92 institution and thinking about the possibility of getting onto the next step up. Obviously I have a sense of what is required at my own institution but am thinking of moving on in time so would be really good to know what the expectations are elsewhere. It's very woolly here but I did interview once somewhere else that had very clear metrics for SL/reader/prof so am wondering if that might be the case for others too.

I guess I'm asking rather simplistically what would get you professorship where you are in terms of number of papers and amount of research income over your career/last 5 years or whatever? I understand the whole esteem thing is less well defined (and possibly a bit more outing too) but any thoughts on that would also be welcome.

I was (ahem) a late starter in terms of my academic career so not sure how feasible it is for me to think of making professor before I keel over but thought I'd ask here for starters.

my university does not have a specific number of papers / grants but would like to see

• published major papers (you can claim major however you like - one in a big journal might be better than 5 in tiny journals)
• get some research income - any kind of grant is OK
• wider participation in community - conference organising / journal editing
• contribute to building the university - public engagement / uni committees / linking university to local business / knowledge exchange that kind of thing

There are internal guidelines with lots of different categories where they want to see something in each category. But I've found that just by being active & taking up the opportunities that are available, I cover most categories without specifically thinking 'I must do that for promotion'

We have clear metrics i.e. so much grant income, 4* papers, PhD supervisions etc but there's also a focus on being seen as a leader so well known internationally for whatever your research area is. I encourage staff I support to focus on international connections, advising policy makers in your field and establishing a reputation where you are able to say you are a leader at X. You also have to have done some service to the university at some point such as leading a REF submission / big committee / department etc.

I would take a look at vacancies for the sort of role you are aiming for on jobs.ac.uk. The jobs will have job descriptions appended and you can see very clearly what the criteria are. I think most places have fairly standardised expectations, at least within disciplines.

Very similar to here (although I'm way off that so I don't read it closely).

We have metrics! 20-30 peer-reviewed papers (or equivalent) and PI on a grant of over £100k. Plus lots of “esteem indicators” and at least a couple of the big admin roles.

Jeez. I look at this and feel like giving up. 😀I feel as though I work so hard but am absolutely miles away from (for example) 20/30 papers. I do look at some people who have made professor and I'm not sure at all sure all of them can really demonstrate all of this. Maybe it does depend on the institution and its prestige.

I am not in social sciences, but my take is that it is harder to move jobs as full professor. Part of this is that to be hired at professor level, one would need to be performing at a high level (big grants, world leading etc). So looking at job ads would not help much because imho depending on the institution, one might make professor at home institution but wouldn't necessarily or immediately at the point of entry into the rank be hired as professor by another institution. In fact I think most professors would find it rather hard to move jobs.
Also, there are professorial bands (scales within professor ranks) and great differentiation in salary.

In agreement with others, a combination of publications, some grants and some big leadership/admin role seems to be a must. At the same time, we have plenty of people in physics or management who make professors without admin roles...

It's the opposite here. We have a problem with promotion (a lessening problem in fairness) and most promotions to professor seem to happen because of an external offer or because people simply leave to take up a higher position.

It is also my experience that it’s easier to move institutions at professor than it is to be internally promoted.

It depends so much on institution. I'm SL (at a 1960s uni that's in the top 20s of league tables, for what that's worth...) and our requirements for promotion are unusually tough (well, I think so). Colleagues in my discipline at other similar universities that have the same (or fewer) markers of esteem/ achievements as me are at Reader and Prof level. It's beyond frustrating, but hey ho... Got to be grateful to have a job at all in the current climate.

Would also agree with this and also that it's not consistent. My department has hired people at reader and prof level in the past 5 years who have less on their CV that people already in the department at lower ranks. Go figure...

Very very institutionally-dependent. For us it is roughly a paper a year, a big grant, running a module, and doing a university -wide strategy or policy role. Plus usual markers of external esteem

My Russell group social science department would expect most of

• strong papers 20 if in a discipline with 1-3 authors per paper, 50+ if in discipline with longer author lists
• grant income >£500k as PI, typically people come with quite a bit more, >£1m as co-I. winning a £1m+ grant as PI typically deals the promotion case
• supervised PhD students to completion
• own research group of 5+ people including PhDs
• teaching contributions, ideally with course leadership experience or teaching committee/external examiner duties
• Leadership roles for the ‘external standing in the field’ bit, eg journal editor, leading role in a learned society, study advisory boards, funding committee membership,
• invited presentations
• ‘friends’ - strong academic networks for promotion references

An offer elsewhere with a credible threat to take significant resource with you can make for very speedy out-of-turn promotion. It is much easier to get appointed to a professorship elsewhere than at own institution, so good networks really help. departments regularly look whether they can poach strong people at SL/Reader level from their competitors

Yes I’d agree too

There’s also complications re title v money?! I have just moved institution as SL. Sideways move but about £10k pay rise so now on just under prof salary. I think they wanted to appoint me but couldn’t promote me (fair enough). So the pay was the compromise? Not sure. Anyway I realised that there’s no real rules here. It’s confusing.

Yes, the profs in my department who were externally appointed are paid much more than the ones who were promoted internally.

We have very explicit metrics, which are high, but there's no issue with internal promotion, that's how most people get promoted here because eventually they hit the metrics and so can't be denied!

Yes, same here. It's a very transparent system. I actually disagree that it's easier to get a professorship elsewhere. The promotion criteria are clear where I work, and there are no jobs elsewhere to even apply for.

I think it probably depends on your subject and university as to whether it is easier to be promoted internally or externally. Also where we are in the REF cycle. My subject was notorious for REF-related poaching, although it was less of a feature of the most recent REF.

We have university-wide descriptive criteria for promotion, but how they transfer into metrics at department level varies a lot and it is virtually impossible to get promoted if your own department doesn't score you highly enough against the university criteria because you don't meet the metrics the department has decided are a match to the university's description.