Have been lurking forever on all these incredible tribunal threads. Have very little I can usefully contribute to the incredible wit and knowledge demonstrated by you lot but I do know a bit about how a university (in England) might ordinarily offer a visiting professorship and have to say Ulster Uni’s approach seems very odd. They evidently decided to create these Visiting Professorships as a way to build networks with industries relating to courses. So regularly appoint a shedload of people but don’t seem to set out standard T&C.
From various press releases some of them are there for three years, some for four. One of them was interviewed in 2016 and said he’d been appointed in 1997! He was clearly very active in R&D in his industry though. One press release noted that the post is voluntary and I imagine the VPs do as much as they want - so it might be a masterclass or two or it might be a series of lectures with potentially a reference text written for the course or offering days in industry to students etc. As long as they are actively working with the uni, they seem to keep their VP status. Some are genuine profs, some have industry or specialist qualifications and others are just “expert” in what they do by dint of having done it for a while (not sure how that would map to DB in 2004).
I could write more about how this is different to the uni I worked in operates but this post would get even longer! I will say that I did once come across an Honorary Prof whose term had expired and was trying to pass himself off as a member of staff and we took a very dim view and took as much action as we could informally to ensure he was shut down.