Dr Jessica Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Literacies and Language, School of Education, University of Sheffield 

In May 2024 I travelled to Central Finland to take part in the final stage of the process for being awarded a docentship in the Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS) at the University of Jyväskylä. But what is a docentship and why would I decide to do this? A docentship is not something we are accustomed to in the UK, but in Finland and other European countries it is common practice. What being a docent means for an academic in Finland is that a University department recognises their achievements and contributions to the field — in research terms but also through a teaching evaluation. According to the University of Jyväskylä’s website:

“A title of docent can be granted by application to a person who has comprehensive knowledge of their own field, a capacity for independent academic research demonstrated through publications or some other manner, and good teaching skills (the Universities Act, Section 89).”

Holding a docentship, which is an unpaid, honorary position, means a commitment to undertaking collaborative work with the awarding department. I have been working with colleagues at the University of Jyväskylä for over a decade now, participating in different seminars and workshops, writing publications, collaborating on ideas and projects, and applying for funding in Finland and in the UK to do research together. In this sense, applying for the docentship was a really nice way to formalise my working relationships and collaboration with colleagues in the Centre for Applied Language Studies and beyond. The research I have undertaken with colleagues Dr Lou Harvey and Dr Emilee Moore on Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics (e.g. Bradley et al., 2018; Bradley & Harvey, 2019; Harvey & Bradley, 2023) as well as arts-based approaches to ESOL (e.g. Simpson & Bradley, 2024) has been of interest to colleagues working in language- and linguistics- focused research in Jyväskylä and other universities in Finland. Working together with colleagues at Jyväskylä, including Professor Sari Pöyhönen, has been incredibly generative for me, leading to different co-authored publications, for example most recently an article published in Applied Linguistics review (Bradley & Pöyhönen, available here).

Also, I am fascinated by how academia works in different places. Many academic discourses are quite hidden, and I think it can be useful to write about them and make them both more transparent and less scary for doctoral researchers and early career researchers. Supervising doctoral research and my work as EdD Deputy Director has given me insights into what kinds of aspects of academic life are shrouded in mystery for students and how we might work to shed light on some of these practices. This was also part of the motivation for the Thinking with Theory project, led by Dr Louise Kay, EdD Director, engaging with doctoral researchers’ questions and concerns about theory in educational research, which I was fortunate to work on with Louise. For me, applying for the docentship was a completely new experience and the genre of writing and presenting was not one I am accustomed to. It’s different to our systems in the UK for visiting professors or researchers. So I thought I would write this blog post to explain how it works and also to help anyone who might be thinking about doing this.

What is the docentship process?

The process is formal and takes place over a number of months. First, I had to send in an application, which included a docentship application letter, full CV and publications list formatted according to the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK), a teaching portfolio, a research merits document, and five selected publications in full. The teaching portfolio follows a particular format, with the structure including pedagogical thinking and training, teaching and supervision experience, contribution to teaching, production of teaching materials and other merits in teaching. I found it helpful that there were expected structures and frameworks for the majority of these documents. However, a challenge with anything of this kind is how to translate across processes, for example explaining to international audiences what recognition from the HEA means in the UK context. It is not dissimilar to a job application process in some ways, although a docentship is not a salaried position and it does not lead to employment. In my letter I also had to state what the docentship title could be — I chose ‘Docentship in Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics’ as this linked to a lot of the collaborative research activities I have undertaken with colleagues there and offered a distinctive contribution to the department, complementing and supporting their research activity and doctoral teaching.

After the application is submitted, internal screening within the department and Faculty takes place to decide if the candidate will be supported. Once the application has been approved to progress to the next stage, the full dossier is sent out to review by two professors (in my case one in a different institution in Finland and one in the UK). These reviewers must be aware of the field and the candidate’s research to be able to comment on their contribution, but not be a close collaborator, friend or colleague. The external reviewers read the whole application, including the five submitted publications. They then write a report which assesses the suitability of the candidate for the award of a docentship, with reference to the criteria. The University of Jyväskylä states that the candidate must be an independent researcher in terms of driving their own research agenda and must have:

‘actively continued research after the completion of the dissertation and, in addition to the dissertation, has published scientific studies that expand the field of research and correspond to at least a second high-quality doctoral dissertation in their scientific significance, quality and extent’.

Part of the assessment, therefore, is whether the candidate has done the equivalent of a second doctorate since completion of their doctoral studies. This suggests to me that the docentship is for around 4–5 years after the first doctorate, in order for the candidate to have developed a sufficient body of work. Once these reviews were submitted with favourable outcomes, my application was progressed to the next stage — a trial lecture. The process is transparent and the candidate is sent the two external reviews to read.

The trial lecture is, again, a genre with which we are not necessarily familiar in the UK but in Finland it is standard practice for docentships and for academic job applications, for which a trial lecture outcome is part of the assessment process. It is a public event in the sense that anyone can attend. The lecture is 20-minutes in length and timekeeping is strict. Colleagues from across the university are invited to attend the lecture. A panel of representatives from the department, including senior researchers (e.g. professors or lecturers) and students are responsible for assessing the trial lecture and there is a standardised rubric for assessment which they use. To be awarded the docentship the trial lecture must be assessed as either good or excellent (the other option is fail). The Faculty panel then has to formally review the process, in terms of reading the reviews, dossier and the outcome report from the trial lecture. Anyone who might not be considered impartial (for example, research collaborators) cannot participate in the decision. The lecture should not be read from a script and should showcase research-based teaching. The resulting assessment of the trial lecture is transferable — for example it can be used for a different post — within a certain time period.

Reflections on the process

I found the trial lecture genre to be a really interesting one for a number of reasons. First, it is not a class in itself and any activities are hypothetical in that they should be presented as what you would do were you to actually be in a classroom. I had to think about this carefully in terms of showing what I would do and why, whilst keeping to the allocated time and remaining coherent. Second, the panel are the ones assessing the material and delivery, so the trial lecture is not presented to students or as if it were a class. Materials are shown and explained to the panel who are academics with expertise in research and with a knowledge of the field, but who have not worked with the candidate directly. So, of course, the researchers with whom I have collaborated previously could not be part of this panel for impartiality reasons. Third, the assessment process by a panel is not something I have experienced before. We have peer assessment processes and student observation processes (e.g. SOOT) too at the University of Sheffield but these tend to be based on observing actual teaching practice rather than hypothetical. Fourth, the lecture must not be longer than 20 minutes but it must not be scripted. After 20 minutes the chair will stop the lecture.

My trial lecture title was ‘Expanding Applied Linguistics Through Creative Inquiry’, linked to the title of my docentship. I targeted my teaching and materials at doctoral researchers, as the Centre for Applied Language Studies has postgraduate programmes rather than undergraduate degrees. I created a webpage with a QR code from my lecture slides, which participants and the panel could access during my talk and which would provide them with additional reading, examples of creative outputs and further details and links related to my lecture. I found this experience to be incredibly generative, in terms of getting me to think about how I could design materials for a different institution based on my research and teaching at The University of Sheffield. It helped me to bring together a few different ideas and consolidate some of the teaching materials I have created over the years. I am an advocate of research-led teaching, but also of what might be called teaching-led research. I learn from my students and their different perspectives when I’m teaching and the processes are never linear. I often use research that is in process in my teaching, for example sharing draft writing, as part of my desire to show writing processes and the often hidden parts of doing research. So reframing and rethinking the work I’ve been doing over the past decade and more for the trial lecture has helped me to also think about how I’ll do things in the future, in terms of research and teaching. A colleague and I have been discussing ideas for a possible textbook and the process of preparing for the trial lecture actually consolidated some of my ideas for this.

After the trial lecture the panel left the room to decide the outcome and complete the paperwork. Other participants were then invited to stay and ask questions for the next half hour, and this ended up being a really lovely discussion about arts-based research and creative methods, both front- and back- stage in research, with people sharing their own practices.

The next stages, including the Faculty board review, take a few weeks and I will be notified of the outcome of the docentship award once it has been progressed through the University’s committees by mid June 2024. I am very grateful to have been able to participate in this process and that researchers were interested in the work I have been doing and want to talk about it. I also enjoyed having the insight into research and academic processes in international contexts, which is all relevant for me as one of the Internationalisation Directors in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. I find that one of the joys and privileges of academic work is that we are able to work with people from all over the world and share our ideas and thinking, learning from others. As part of my work in Internationalisation, with my colleague Dr Abigail Parrish, I am hoping to build more opportunities for student mobility to Finland, drawing on these strong collaborative links.

I would like to thank everyone involved in this process for their generosity and time. I would particularly like to thank Professor Sari Pöyhönen for her support and collegial collaboration, as well as others within the University of Jyväskylä, including Dr Petteri Laihonen, Professor Taina Saarinen, Dr Johanna Ennser-Kananen and Dr Tamás Petér Szabó who have collaborated with me in projects, seminars and publications! Kiitos!