The Higher Education Academy, set up to improve the teaching skills of lecturers, risks ignoring the professional needs of academics as it concentrates on improving the learning experience for students, a leading authority on higher education warned this week.
Speaking on the eve of the HEA's first annual conference, Ron Barnett, professor of higher education at the Institute of Education, University of London, said the big issue facing the academy was the extent to which it operated as a professional body.
He said the HEA's decision to scrap membership fees for lecturers and to focus on improving the learning environment for students meant that there was a danger that it was a body serving the interests of vice-chancellors and other managers rather than a professional body acting in the interests of its academic members.
Professor Barnett said: "While the removal of annual fees was instructive, the re-weighting of priorities meant individual members were getting a reduced deal.
"It's a repositioning of the HEA. It's not going to stop caring about individual lecturers totally but that element in its portfolio is going to recede.
"It's disappointing because its whole raison d'etre was to be a professional body to ensure the quality of teaching of individual lecturers and protect and advance their interests."
Paul Ramsden, the HEA's chief executive, said that the academy was neither a professional society nor an association for teachers and was not a regulatory body.
Professor Ramsden said the academy's task was clear cut, that it existed to help institutions and those working in them to provide the best possible learn-ing experience for all students. He said one of the HEA's key tasks was to lead, support and inform the professional development and recognition of staff in higher education.
Professor Ramsden was emphatic about the need for research evidence to inform higher education. "It's important we influence policy. Sending a message through the research assessment exercise is the way to do that."
The academy had launched £250,000 of policy-related research projects that would help inform the sector, he said. "There was a gap there and it's a role we are happy to take up."
But others are concerned. Alan Jenkins, professor of higher education at Oxford Brookes University, said: "The academy is not giving teaching and learning the recognition they deserve in the run up to the RAE."
According to Judy Simons, chair of the HEA's council, next year's agenda will be demanding.
"We'll be working with the academy to help it take forward the key items in its strategic plan."
This includes the professional standards framework, due to go out for consultation this month.
"We are also considering issues relating to part-time staff (including graduate teaching assistants) and the relationships between universities and professional bodies." she said.
Liz Beaty, director of teaching and learning at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, said she was pleased with its progress. "It belongs to the sector and if people get actively involved in it, it will become what they want it to be."
A formal evaluation by the funding councils and the academy will take place in 2008.