AUT/NATFHE RESEARCH SEMINAR: ENHANCING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESEARCH AND TEACHING  (Britannia Street, 11 November 2004)
Key points 
•	Participants welcomed the joint union approach and it was evident that the issues discussed were critical across the sector and did not only affect those in a particular group of institutions;
•	The HERF advice on the teaching-research relationship was welcomed, in particular its description of the importance of a research environment for all staff and students;
•	The unions were urged to act together to influence policy makers in the critical debate on research funding and assessment, and to call for new money for the funding stream recommended in the HERF paper;
•	There is a need to challenge the perceived dichotomy between research, scholarship and teaching.  Scholarship is the key concept – a shared engagement between students and lecturers in discovering and advancing knowledge.  Research is built on this base.
•	Research impacts on teaching not only in terms of research content but of the integration of research methods and processes in teaching at all levels.  We need to challenge the hierarchical thinking that suggests that research is only relevant to teaching at third year or post-graduate levels;
•	The unions need to challenge the RAE from a number of perspectives, and to develop suggestions for alternative models.  One of the RAE’s most detrimental impacts has been to drive teaching and research apart in most institutions.  We should look at the impact of other mechanisms as well – for instance the extent to which the Transparent Costing exercise has contributed to the separation of research and teaching.  
•	Whilst the priority is for increased funding on a model that doesn’t isolate research and teaching from each other, there may be additional ways of  securing a fairer distribution of funding - at a number of levels - to allow research opportunities to be more widely shared.
•	NATFHE and the AUT need to build their evidence base in arguing for synergy between research and teaching, in funding and in practice, for instance through:
o	Supporting evidence from international comparators;
o	Evidence from a number of the professions where practitioners are increasingly required to engage in research, and teaching has to have a research-active base;
o	Case studies from members of the ways in which their work with students draws on research processes, methods and content and where an active engagement in teaching can stimulate research questions and processes
o	Communication via email networks and discussion forums was one of the best ways to continue the debate within the two unions.