Academics’ reflexive engagement with the Advance HE Fellowship: aspirations, supports, challenges, and lessons learned

Erin Siostrom; Craig Johnston; Tracey Sempowicz; Karen Hands; Judy Craft

doi:10.1080/19415257.2026.2720075

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Academics’ reflexive engagement with the Advance HE Fellowship: aspirations, supports, challenges, and lessons learned

Journal article

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Academics’ reflexive engagement with the Advance HE Fellowship: aspirations, supports, challenges, and lessons learned

Erin Siostrom, Craig Johnston, Tracey Sempowicz, Karen Hands and Judy Craft

Professional Development in Education, Vol.Advanced access

18-Aug-2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2026.2720075

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Abstract

Education policy, sociology and philosophy

Professional education and training

Professional development and adult education

Higher education

Professional Standards Framework

Academic Reflexivity

Advance HE Fellowship

Advance HE’s Professional Standards Framework 2023 underpins the Advance HE Fellowship, an increasingly encouraged form of professional recognition for teaching in higher education. Although the Fellowship has been critiqued as a neoliberal performativity tool, less attention has been paid to the personal, cultural, and structural conditions that shape academics’ engagement with this form of professional recognition. This study presents findings from semi-structured interviews with Australian academics who recently achieved Advance HE Fellowship. Inductive thematic analysis generated themes and subthemes illustrating participants’ experiences of the Fellowship process, including aspirations, supports, challenges, and lessons learned. Exploring these findings through the lens of Archer’s reflexivity demonstrates how participants are enabled and constrained as they navigate the conditions that shape their Fellowship experiences. This nuanced account of how academics engage with, navigate, and are shaped by the Advance HE Fellowship offers insights for universities and academics engaging with the process.

Details

Title: Academics’ reflexive engagement with the Advance HE Fellowship: aspirations, supports, challenges, and lessons learned
Authors: Erin Siostrom (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
Craig Johnston - University of the Sunshine Coast
Tracey Sempowicz - University of the Sunshine Coast
Karen Hands - University of the Sunshine Coast
Judy Craft - University of the Sunshine Coast
Publication details: Professional Development in Education, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2026.2720075
ISSN: 1941-5265
Copyright note: © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Organisation Unit: School of Business and Creative Industries
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991251598602621
Output Type: Journal article

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