CV Standards for Academic Promotion

1.     General
2.    
Promotion up to Senior Lecturer/Senior Research Fellow (SL/SRF)
3.    
Promotion to Professor
4.    
CV Content 
        
    - Format
        
     - Personal Information
        
     - Present Appointment
        
     - Previous Appointments
        
     - Academic Qualifications
        
     - Special Awards, Honours and Distinctions
        
     - Teaching and related administration (if appropriate to the role)
        
     - Research and related administration (if appropriate to the role)
        
     - Academic Leadership and Citizenship
        
     - Future Plans

Appendix One: Guidance and exemplars of engagement and impact (PDF, 325kB)


1.  General

These standards are mandatory - and any applications submitted with CVs which do not meet these will be rejected before consideration and with no right of appeal.

These standards apply to these academic promotion and movement procedures: Promotion up to Senior Lecturer/Senior Research Fellow (which includes promotion to Lecturer (level c) and Senior Research Fellow across all pathways) and Promotion to Professor (which includes promotion to Associate Professor).  The requirements for each procedure are the same in terms of CV format and content, the only difference being the permitted maximum length. (which includes promotion to Associate Professor).  The requirements for each procedure are the same in terms of CV format and content, the only difference being the permitted maximum length. 

It is a requirement for these procedures that CVs are submitted in accordance with these standards. This is to enable a fair and effective comparison and assessment of candidates against the criteria.

All information will be treated with an appropriate level of confidentiality in accordance with the relevant data protection legislation as detailed within the staff fair processing notice. Candidates using the Promotion to Professor procedure should note that a copy of their CV, personal statement and evidence against selected criteria will be forwarded to external assessors when requesting assessor reports. Equality statements will not be forwarded to the assessors due to the sensitive personal data contained within statements and because the assessors are primarily focusing on quality of output rather than quantity. Equality statements will be considered by Faculty Promotion Committees against the whole case for promotion.

2.   Promotion up to Senior Lecturer/Senior Research Fellow (SL/SRF)

Cases submitted under the Promotion up to SL/SRF Procedure should comprise of the candidate’s CV accompanied by an application form.  CVs should be set out as detailed below and should be no longer than 8 sides of A4 using 12-point type. Candidates should ensure that pages are numbered. If the candidate feels there are equality issues to be considered, these should be included as part of the application form outlining the circumstances and the impact on academic output.

Candidates should refer to the relevant Academic Promotions Framework - Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow (PDF, 409kB) and ensure that their application form and CV contain all necessary relevant information.  Specific guidance on impact and engagement, where relevant, can be found here: Appendix One: Guidance and exemplars of engagement and impact (PDF, 325kB).

3.  Promotion to Professor

Cases submitted under the Promotion to Professor (which includes promotion to Associate Professor) should comprise the candidate’s CV, which should be accompanied by the application form. CVs should be set out as detailed below and should be no longer than 16 sides of A4 using 12-point type. (Candidates with long publication lists may opt to include some of this detail in a separate appendix.)  Key information relevant to the case for promotion must be included in the main bulk of the CV, although the main case for promotion to Associate Professor or Professor will be in the application form and the evidence provided against selected criteria (with cross-referencing to the CV and the fuller list of publications in the separate appendix as appropriate). 

Candidates should ensure that pages are numbered. 

Candidates should refer to the relevant Academic Promotions Framework (PDF, 318kB) and ensure that their application form and CVs contain all necessary relevant information.  Specific guidance on impact and engagement, where relevant, can be found here: Appendix One: Guidance and exemplars of engagement and impact (PDF, 325kB)

(Back to top)

4.  CV Content 

Format

CVs should be presented in Word type format with a font size no smaller than 12 point.

Personal Information

This should include full name and any other personal details that you feel are appropriate. Equality factors that impact on work should be declared separately on the application form.

Present Appointment

This should set out your formal title, together with the date on which you were appointed to this position.

Previous Appointments

Set out the details of all previous appointments (title, employer, dates) in order, with the most recent appointment first.

Academic Qualifications

List in date order all degrees, diplomas, certificates and professional qualifications, with dates and name of the awarding body, with the most recent qualification first.  The titles of theses forming part of a qualification should be given in this section.

Special Awards, Honours and Distinctions

This section should include honorary awards and special membership of learned bodies.

Teaching and related administration (if appropriate to the role)

This section should start with a single paragraph summarising the major achievements in this area and explaining their importance and significance.  The rest of the section should be descriptive and summarise your teaching.

You should start by giving your most recent teaching profile, covering a period of three years.  It should contain brief details of:

(i) All undergraduate and taught postgraduate units to which you have contributed in the period, noting:

    a)    the numbers of students taught
    b)    their curriculum year
    c)    the level of responsibility for the content of the unit
    d)    the general nature of the teaching, e.g. tutorial, lecture, seminar, practical
    e)    the preparation hours and contact hours for the unit as a whole and the proportion which your contribution represented
    f)     the teaching methods used
    g)    the assessments used
    h)    the impact of the teaching (i.e. demonstrate the influence and value of teaching you have undertaken)

(ii) Major teaching responsibilities in previous years that have not already been included above, with dates where possible

(iii) Innovatory units or teaching methods introduced by you

(iv) Contribution to Life-long Learning and continuing professional development courses (with appropriate details of the level, method and quantity involved)

(v)  Collaborative teaching projects with colleagues in other schools or faculties or institutions

(vi) Postgraduate advising, giving the names of research students you are advising currently (indicating whether you are the single adviser or whether there are joint advisory arrangements) and the names of those whom you have successfully advised in the past.

(vii) Major achievements in teaching administration, explaining the importance and significance.

These might involve:

(viii) Any teaching responsibilities which are not typical of your academic pathway

(Back to top)

Research and related administration (if appropriate to the role)

This section should start with a single paragraph summarising the major achievements in this area and explaining their importance and significance.  The rest of the section should be descriptive and summarise your research output.  We encourage you to include your ORCID ID if you have one.  The University of Bristol has produced a Policy Statement and associated guidance on responsible research assessment, including the appropriate use of quantitative research metrics.  It includes being a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), in which the University is committed to the critical role that expert judgement plays in the assessment of research and will consider the value and impact of all types of research output.

You are asked to set out your activities in the following order:

(i) Publications   

These should be numbered and presented in the order set out below, with the most recent appearing first in each category.  Where there is more than one author, you must indicate as precisely as possible the degree of your contribution, either as a percentage figure or descriptively in terms of your particular input.  When using the term ‘et al’, please include the number of additional authors this represents in brackets afterwards and indicate your own position on the list if this is not already clear.

You should highlight publications with international co-authors and authors from non-academic organisations.

You must indicate the overall length of books and the number of the first and last page of each article, paper or review.  If two or more publications are concerned with essentially the same piece of work (e.g. preliminary communication, a conference contribution and a full report), this should be clearly indicated.

This section must only include publications in the public domain and must not mention publications that are forthcoming or planned. This section must not cite Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) or other publication metrics.

(ii)  Forthcoming Publications

You can list here any publication which is “in press“, or which has actually been accepted for publication, but which has not yet been published.  You should not list any work which has been planned, completed or submitted, but which has not yet been accepted.

(iii)  Research Grants

You should set out grants awarded to you in date order, with the most recent appearing first.  You should indicate the source, the title of the funded project, the total amount of the grant, the time period covered by the grant, an indication of whether or not you were the Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator and the proportion of your contribution.  It is recognised that in some disciplines this is a very much less important indicator of research excellence than in others.

Indicative examples:

  1. 2014, Latin American Migration, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Cultural Engagement Programme, £45,000, 2014-16, as PI, 75%
  2. 2013, Medical Advancements in Prosthetic Robots, Institute of Medical Engineering, £135,000, 2013-16, as Co-PI, 40%

(iv)  Indications of External Recognition

You should list instances where your research quality has been externally recognised.  Such instances might include:

When listing invitations, you should also include any that you have been unable to accept, making it clear which were accepted and which were not.

(v)  Future Plans

You may, if you wish, set out relatively briefly here your research plans for the future, explaining how they develop from existing work, how they will advance understanding and/or knowledge, and within what timescale they might be achieved.

(vi) Related administration

In this section you should set out your major achievements in research administration, explaining the importance and significance.

These might include:

(vii) Any research responsibilities which are not typical of your academic pathway

(Back to top)

Academic Leadership and Citizenship

This section should start with a single paragraph summarising the major achievements in these areas and explaining their importance and significance.  This qualitative statement will carry considerable weight in Promotion Committees’ evaluations.  

(i)  Academic leadership in the discipline

Leadership in the discipline in a national and / or international context may be demonstrated in a variety of ways, e.g. through contributions to presentations, organisation of conferences, development of the discipline within the University, interdisciplinary collaboration, mentoring staff and team building, participating in professional bodies and/ or academic associations and leadership in public engagement, perhaps in the context of knowledge exchange with industry or with the public.

(ii)  Academic leadership in the University

This should include details such as the following (including dates):

(iii)  Professional activities outside the University

This might include details of activities such as:

(iv)  Contributions to society

For example:

(v)  Entrepreneurship, enterprise and partnerships

This is the section in which you might mention activities such as working in partnership with commercial companies, not-for-profit and other external organisations, setting up and running spin out companies, licensing intellectual property that you have been involved in creating, registering patents or other commercial exploitation of research.

(vi)  Good citizenship

This is defined as ’a willingness to be involved in all those aspects of School, Faculty or University life normally expected as a matter of course from academic staff’. Examples of good citizenship are such matters as attendance at Committees and Staff meetings, assiduous performance of personal tutor duties, regularly meeting marking deadlines, involvement in public engagement activities or Open Days, a share in volunteering for necessary one- off duties (this may draw upon examples already provided in other sections of the CV).

An individual who is deemed unsatisfactory in this element will not be eligible for promotion.

Future Plans

This section provides an opportunity for individuals to give details of significant developments/responsibilities/plans that will be taking effect within the forthcoming year, and which have not been covered in the previous sections.  All promotion steps are important milestones in an individual’s academic career and are assessed as such.  By outlining future plans, those assessing promotion cases are in a better position to identify a clear upward trajectory and factor this into their final decision.

(Back to top)

 

This policy was last reviewed and updated: February 2024