In the pre-course survey, many respondents identified teaching as the single biggest consumer of academic time. That is not surprising. Teaching is visible. It is scheduled and we are accountable for it. It has immediate deadlines and clear deliverables. Research, by contrast, is elastic. It expands into whatever space remains.
But teaching does not always have to be the time eater.
In the mid-2000s, Bournemouth University appointed a new Vice Chancellor: Sir Paul Curran. He could be prickly and was status-conscious. But I admired him deeply because he understood what it meant to be an academic. That is a surprisingly rare quality in UK higher education leadership. Under his direction, research at Bournemouth shifted from being an undervalued activity to one positioned alongside teaching in institutional importance.
Some claimed he was not teaching-focused. That was not true. His aim was not to diminish teaching but to rebalance the relationship between teaching and research. The phrase I remember was “releasing potential for research.”
At the time, the university had over 400 units with “research methods” within its portfolio of degrees. Yes, four hundred. The reductive question he posed was simple: why do we need so many? Could we rationalise? Could we streamline? Could we reduce duplication and inefficiency?
Curriculum frameworks were simplified. Programme structures were rationalised. The proliferation of degree titles was reduced. The stated aim was clear: create time and free staff capacity to pursue research and doctoral study.
It never fully worked. Staff clung to their modules and programmes as if they were safety belts. Change felt threatening and in some cases, it was rushed (I take responsibility for that in the faculty I led). In others, staff quietly resisted. Some even counter-briefed students.
At the heart of the resistance was fear.
“What will I do with this time?”
“I don’t want to do a PhD.”
“I’m a teacher, not a researcher.”
Time release is only attractive if you have somewhere to put that time.
I ran a large staff development programme with Colleen Harding to help colleagues transition into research-active roles. Some flourished and some went on to become leading professors, others didn’t. The staff as whole breathed an almost audible sigh of relief when Sir Paul departed and the pressure to be research-active eased.
The lesson?
Changing teaching practice at institutional scale is one of the few ways to significantly alter research capacity. But institutional reform is difficult, political, and emotionally charged. Which raises the more important question: Do you need institutional reform to change your own teaching time profile?
The answer is no.
You can effect change quietly and incrementally — if you are willing to challenge the inertia.
Problem of Inertia
Teaching accumulates complexity over time and Quality Assurance layers multiply. Accreditation bodies impose requirements. Modules are inherited, or team taught.
“We’ve always done it this way” becomes doctrine.
There is a cultural reverence for existing module structures that far exceeds their pedagogical merit. And yet, in most cases, you have more autonomy than you think. Not total freedom — but meaningful room for redesign.
My Own Practice
In recent years I focused much of my teaching on the Science Foundation degree at Bournemouth. It was designed as an entry route for nurses, midwives, theatre technicians, psychologists — and occasionally geographers — without strong qualifications. While some mature students enrolled, most were school leavers who had been failed by the system. Over 250 students per cohort, giving large classes with significant pastoral needs.
I was the programme leader and those pastoral needs cost me in time and emotion. My young daughter is for ever singing the title song from K-Pop Demon Hunters. It goes something like this: I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back. But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass. Many of the students I encountered were broken, but when you help that broken glass shine and find its place in the world there is absolutely no better feeling!
I taught Applied Sciences and Study Skills modules on the degree. Two assessments per unit and as result a significant marking load. For Applied Sciences, one assignment was straightforward: a written report testing research and communication skills. That meant 250+ reports to mark. I was offered a marking team, but in my experience coordinating multiple markers and achieving consistency often takes longer than blocking out two disciplined days and doing it myself.
The second assignment for Applied Sciences was more interesting. If you want to communicate a healthcare message to someone of my generation, you write a letter or email. But that is not how younger cohorts communicate. So I set an assessment requiring students to produce a short YouTube or TikTok-style video conveying a health care message. Was I best placed to judge TikTok aesthetics? Probably not. So the class graded the submissions collectively in a single two-hour session.
The marking load was reduced dramatically and student engagement increased. The format was authentic to the unit learning objectives. This is a small example, but the principle matters.
Innovation can reduce workload — without reducing standards. Some colleagues opted for multiple-choice quizzes when faced with similar numbers. Efficient? Yes. Educationally robust? I am less convinced. Students can “game” online quizzes and they test recall more than reasoning. My point: efficiency does not mean dilution. The key is intelligent redesign, not shortcutting.
And here is the underused opportunity: innovations in assessment can themselves become scholarship. A short pedagogical evaluation paper does not take long to write. It strengthens your case for promotion. It integrates teaching and research rather than setting them in opposition. I have always tried in my teaching practice to follow a mantra of: research informed teaching.
The Real Issue
We often assume reducing teaching load is beyond our control. Institutionally, that may be true. Pedagogically, it is not.
You can:
Consolidate assessments.
Replace multiple small tasks with one meaningful one.
Use peer or group marking intelligently.
Reduce duplication in feedback.
Build reusable content.
Align assessment with authentic output.
You can design for efficiency without abandoning rigour.
The deeper issue is psychological. Teaching feels urgent, while research feels optional. When teaching pressures grow they expands into evenings and weekends. Research shrinks to whatever remains.
But if research is vocation — not merely career — as we have argued elsewhere then protecting time for it is not selfish. It is necessary. Teaching will always consume time. It is relational, immediate and visible. But it does not have to consume all available time. There is inertia in module design. There is fear in change and off course there is comfort in routine.
But there is also autonomy. The question is not:
“How do I get rid of teaching?”
It is:
“How do I design teaching so it does not devour everything else?”
Because if we do not consciously shape teaching, it will shape us. And research will always be the casualty of default design or simply accepting the status quo.
(C) Matthew Bennett, 2026.
