Promotion rejection, what next?

[Wouldbeprofessor]

My application for professor (social sciences) has just been rejected and feedback from the promotions committee has somewhat confused me about what to do next.

My internal mentor advised me 18 months ago to throw everything at funding applications. I have followed that advice and am PI on a small charitable project and Co-I on three £1 million+ applications for EU and UKRI projects.

Feedback from the committee is that they rejected my application because the bigger projects aren't close enough to my core area of expertise. Imagine that my core area is “housing for young people in rural areas” and the EU/UKRI projects are around “social housing in urban areas” i.e. the projects are in the broad area of housing but a different geographic and thematic context. I don’t work in housing but hopefully you get what I mean!

I have spoken to a couple of people about this and they have given me conflicting advice as to what to do next i.e. Professor A says to focus on landing more money any which way and that will win the committee round. Professor B says I should stick to "housing for young people in rural areas” which isn’t that attractive to funders TBH.

I realise that this may be an institution-specific question, but given that I may have to move elsewhere to get promoted, I am interested in your own views about whether I should listen to Professor A, Professor B, or perhaps pursue a third way I’ve not thought of!

I would listen to the committee and also look very closely at the promotions framework (if you have one).

But if your core area of expertise is not attractive to funders, it's going to be tougher for you.

i've never heard of a requirement that you work in one area of expertise - my area of expertise has changed about 5 times in my academic career.

they may be implying that they want to see you have PI grants rather than Co-I grants. And are the Co-I grants funded or just applied for? that was a bit ambiguous.

I think you need to keep applying for funding, any kind of funding in any area that can get it. when you bring some PI money in, they won't care about the topic.

I’d say a professor needs to be a PI on a large-ish grant.

But do what men do: get shortlisted for a Chair elsewhere and tell them. Use it for leverage.

I would guess ‘not close to your area of expertise’ means they want you to lead large grants as sole or at least lead PI. For our professorial promotion matrix we need to have two UKRI grants as lead (if we are specialising in research)

Yeah, I wonder if that's code for "be PI on something big". So I'd suggest going where there is money, but be lead. They can't expect you to stick one specific research area for your whole career. That isn't how academics works, and I can't imagine they want a narrowly focused Prof.

Universities are short on cash and maybe just coming up with reasons to validate a decision not to promote unless they really have to?

What just happened to you illustrates that there is zero point in following institutional priorities, as the goalposts can and do move at any time. It's pointless applying for promotion, or funding, as that just allows other people to set your priorities for you. And in the current climate, if your promotion were successful, that would likely increase your chances of being made redundant. Also, if you've been in academia long enough to be considering applying for a professorship, then you're long past needing a mentor. So, just ignore the promotions committee, ignore the mentor, ignore the funders, ignore Professors A and B, and do whatever research and whatever else you think you would enjoy doing and would bring joy to the world. Good luck!

Just out of interest, what would you consider counts as ‘something big’ from a research funding perspective?

"if you've been in academia long enough to be considering applying for a professorship, then you're long past needing a mentor. "

not sure i agree with this @Whyisthemoonmadeofgreencheese

mentorship can be useful at all career stages, there is very much a hidden curriculum for academicing

i ve found mentorship pre professorship application helpful (especially with how to value my outputs and activities, and showcase them for application purpose). Navigating the KPIs and benchmarks and positioning my "professorial statement" were too tricky aspects that mentors helped me reflect on.

I would say more than £750k ish for my field

Where I am you would need to actually have major grants in hand, not just applications

But as well, I think promotions are tighter at the moment because of the financial climate. One of my colleagues was just rejected who should normally have gone through.

Same here (also Soc Sci) - you wouldn’t get your prof unless you showed research leadership, and here that means winning a large grant. Roughly £1m, ideally interdisciplinary and/or multi-institution, involving stakeholders etc . Doesn’t matter who from although UKRI is popular due to funding formula they use

Winning Co-I grants and smaller PI grant are important steps on the way but in my institution you’d not be considered quite ready. Here, the topic doesn’t matter for promotion as long as you’ve got enough expertise in the area to run a large project.
And all that needs to be balanced with REFable papers, PhD completions, decent teaching record and so on.

Applying for promotion was good regardless - feedback can be useful and they see you’re ambitious and keen to progress

I've never heard of getting on a short-list elsewhere as being adequate for a promotion in your current institution. Being offered a job somewhere else, yes, certainly.

I'm just applying for professorship (professorhood? professordom?) and I have a mentor. She's been great.

I have loads of publications (some with ancient data as per another thread - usually where a special issue popped up) but hardly any grants as PI though I'm coI on a Centre Grant. But our field is also hard to get grants and in our Discipline Expectations they list applying for grants as well as getting them.
It seems fairly normal to refuse promotion with little grant money (I have other strings to my bow especially policy but I'm still nervous) but spreading yourself across several research areas is totally normal IMO.