Truth behind figures 1

It was disappointing to see in your article "Onward march of the no-research regiment" (June 24) that comments by our deputy vice-chancellor, Jeff Lucas, were taken entirely out of context.

Bradford University was cited as one of the universities with the highest percentage of teaching-only staff, which inevitably raises questions of our strategy for teaching and research interaction.

In 1998, our senate agreed to have no more than 20 per cent of staff on teaching-only contracts, and this is exactly the proportion we have today. Now that the Higher Education Statistics Agency's methodology incorporates all hourly paid staff, our results have been skewed showing that we employ about 50 per cent teaching-only staff - based on a head count. Our hourly paid staff are enormously valued, as they are at many other institutions, and in some cases they are eminent researchers in their field.

Perhaps The Times Higher should look to its own league tables for evidence. Bradford was shown to have 74.8 per cent of staff with a teaching and research contract in this year's Times Higher university league tables but suddenly, according to the new data, we have 50 per cent teaching-only.

Since 1998, only five of our academic staff have moved, by choice, to teaching-only contracts, usually to take on key roles in curriculum development or roles related to teaching quality enhancement. None has moved for reasons to do with the research assessment exercise. Indeed, we have had significantly more movement of teaching-only staff to teaching and research contracts than in the opposite direction.

We remain committed to our policy of teaching in an atmosphere of research.

Chris Taylor
Vice-chancellor Bradford University