I gained my Principal Fellowship of AdvanceHE (PFHEA) last year. At the time I was very focussed on just getting it done, but a year on I wanted to reflect on the process a little. I also wanted to share some of my experience that may be of use to others applying.

You might find it helpful to read my PFHEA application before reading this blog. It should make sense without reading the application, but it might help you understand my reflections more having seen the final document.

The criteria and expectations

I will be honest and say that for a long time PFHEA felt pretty intimidating. I think there is a huge gap in the expectations for Senior Fellowship and Principal Fellowship. SFHEA has a focus on leadership and influence on others, which I think dedicated educators can achieve in a wide variety of roles, both academic and professional services. SFHEA also recognises both formal and informal leadership, and I think uses quite an inclusive set of criteria.

PFHEA has a focus on strategic leadership, which I think is very difficult to obtain unless you have been in the right formal leadership roles. When I applied I hadn’t been an Associate Dean, or chair of a committee, or head of a directorate. However I had done lots of institution level work that had been included in our TEF narrative. I had also done lots of external work through professional societies and the Quality Assurance Agency, and have a strong pedagogical research publication record. I eventually found a way to write my application using an appropriate strategic leadership voice. However I often felt that PFHEA wasn’t designed for educators working externally at (inter)national level within their discipline, as it seemed to assume much more institutional policy work. I should also point out that I wrote mine aligned to the old PFHEA criteria, not the revised 2023 criteria which I think are better and more inclusive of a variety of job roles.

The writing process

I applied for PFHEA through a written application to our institutional accreditation scheme, not directly to AdvanceHE as many PFs do. Our institution also had an option for a professional dialogue accompanied by a shorter written submission, but I wanted an application I could share with others afterwards. I am also really bad at internal interviews so decided on the written route. I would be interested to know how I would have approached it differently as a dialogue.

The internal format was therefore a little different to the direct submission route, although an equivalent overall workload. Our scheme required a a 2500 reflective commentary, around a dozen 100 word examples of professional practice and 4 case studies of 800 words each. Including references that is a total of ~7,500 words, so quite a sizeable undertaking, equivalent to writing a paper. I think PFHEA is worth more to me career wise than another research paper, but others on alternative career paths or with less education-focussed line managers may disagree.

I was very fortunate to have two colleagues to form ‘PFHEA club’ with. We scheduled several focussed afternoons to work on our applications. Some afternoons were writing retreats, but I think the most valuable sessions were the early ones where we were grappling with the PFHEA criteria themselves. It took quite a lot of back-and-forth discussion to work out what the criteria really meant, which is perhaps a comment on the clarity of expectations. We focussed a lot of our discussion on what our case studies were going to be, and whether we felt we had strong enough case studies to hit each of the criteria. I found that for two case studies it was pretty obvious what I should write, but for the other two I struggled to find a focus. Knowing how ‘tight’ a case study should be was challenging. At least one of my ‘case studies’ I don’t think really was a case study, but a themed set of activities.

Working through the case studies with others was in one way really valuable, but at one point I was a bit disheartened by it. The case study I was struggling with the most was the strongest for one of my colleagues. As I was writing against the old PFHEA criteria, one case study had to focus on “sustained and successful commitment to, and engagement in, continuing professional development related to academic, institutional and/or other professional practices.”. My colleague had done lots of formal accreditation, an EdD and was a journal editor so had lots to talk about. I really thought I didn’t have anything to bring to this as I hadn’t done any formal CPD. I eventually wrote a case study called ‘From ignorance of scholarship to educational research’ which drew a narrative through my pedagogical scholarship and research. I’m not sure it really aligned to the idea of strategic leadership, but it seemed to do the job.

I also struggled with the reflective commentary section for quite a while. I instinctively wanted to present my educational journey in chronological order, but that meant that it took a long time to build up to the work I was doing at PFHEA level. It also felt like a lot of meandering waffle to be honest!

Two things really helped me find clarity. One was to use van Lankveld et al (2017) as a five domain framework for developing academic teacher identity. This provided structure that my early drafts sorely lacked. The other was to start with a short section which essentially read as ‘here I am sitting writing my PFHEA having achieved lots of PFHEA level things. How did I get from the start of my career to here?’. This front-loaded the most important pieces of impact, but then opened up the chronological narrative I wanted to write.

What value has PFHEA had?

So what did I get out of PFHEA? Any opportunity to reflect on your career and achievements is always useful, so writing the application gave me some focus. I’m not sure I gained any specific novel insight into my practice, but it was certainly valuable to collate all of the evidence together and think about the impact of some of my activities. It also helped me articulate some of my professional identity in a more structured way. I write quite quickly and already had a lot of my evidence gathered, so I think the effort to reward ratio was about right for me. However those who don’t find writing easy or don’t collect evidence as they go along might disagree with me.

At the time I don’t think I saw PFHEA as having much value within my institution. Immediate education focussed colleagues recognised the achievement, as did my Head of School, but I’m not sure it was institutionally valued. At the time I felt more o a personal sense of satisfaction and validation for my work. This of course has intrinsic value, and I was proud to add it to my email signature and announce it to colleagues. PFHEA is a big deal, and did feel like a real personal achievement to get it.

Since then I have moved university and into an institutional educational leadership role. Now I am really feeling the value of those initials after my name, as well as my National Teaching Fellowship. I do feel that it gives my voice more authority and weight, particularly with new senior colleagues who don’t yet know my work. PFHEA definitely helps establish my expertise and experience, and think I would perhaps not be as confident in my new role were I still SFHEA. I’m really glad I applied when I did, and it hopefully means I can make more immediate impact in my new role with those credentials behind me.

Advice for others thinking about PFHEA

I hope these reflections have been useful in exploring the process a little, but I also realise they may be quite personal and difficult to translate to other contexts. Here are some of my thoughts about PFHEA that may be more applicable to others:

• Really understand the criteria. I have previously shared advice on meeting the requirements for SFHEA, and the need to focus on the criteria. The same is true for PFHEA. It isn’t a promotion application or a narrative CV, it is a scheme with its own specific criteria that you need to clearly address in your application. As I discuss above, I found it took a bit of working out what they really meant. Get advice from others who have been through the process, and keep a copy of the criteria with you while you write.
• Make sure you are doing the right strategic work. Evidence of strategic leadership material is essential, so you may need to start by making sure you are actually doing the work both within your institution and externally. Review what you are currently doing, and actively seek out opportunities to address the gaps. It could take a couple of years between identifying a gap in your activities and seeing the impact of that work. I would therefore see PFHEA as a 2-3 year process, particularly if you are not in a formal institutional leadership role.
• Get yourself on institutional and external committees. Make sure those committees to lead to impact though – a talking shop that doesn’t achieve anything won’t help that much. I’d recommend getting on institutional task-and-finish groups that have a defined project and outcomes, as these make for good case studies. Policy review groups are also good PFHEA material.
• Disseminate work to a wide and varied audience. To build up that evidence of strategic impact you are going to need a wide network of people who can attest to your impact. Make sure your work is being presented at national level events and conferences, and being written up in sector relevant blogs (e.g. WonkHE, Times Higher Education). Don’t just present at your usual friendly community of practice meeting – submit abstracts for the bigger HE conferences and symposia. Building up your reputation will lead to invitations to join working groups and projects, as well as invitations to speak at other institutions. All of this is the sort of thing that really helps a PFHEA application.
• Evaluate as you go along. You are going to need to evidence your activity throughout, and this cannot be done as an afterthought. Plan your evaluation as early as you can into a project. Make sure you ask colleagues for evidence of your strategic leadership and impact as well.
• Block time for writing. PFHEA takes quite a lot of careful reflective writing, which takes time. See my previous blog post on creating time to write for practical hints and tips.
• Find your own PFHEA club. Working out what PF was all about with a couple of colleagues was really important for me. I don’t know if I would have (I) found the time and (II) really understood the criteria if I had done it completely alone. Writing our applications together also gave us accountability, and was also just a really enjoyable way to spend a few afternoons. I would also strongly advise finding a critical friend who can support you and give constructive feedback on your application.

References

van Lankveld, T., Schoonenboom, J., Volman, M., Croiset, G., & Beishuizen, J. (2017). Developing a teacher identity in the university context: a systematic review of the literature. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(2), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2016.1208154