Designed together, built to last: Academic Career and Reward Framework(ACRF) details revealed

Helen McShane, Deputy Head of Division and Associate Head of Division (Translation and Personnel) Medical Sciences Division and ACRF Steering Group Co-Deputy Chair and ACRF Steering Group member, Professor Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Associate Head of Division (People) Social Sciences Division, share an outline of the Academic Career and Reward Framework and discuss how it will work in practice. 

• Over the last 12 months, project leads have engaged staff, trade unions, divisional boards and colleges to develop the Academic Career and Reward Framework 
• The approach aims to support academic success across multiple pathways and career stages 
• Key components of the framework include job families, promotion pathways and career stages with defined titles

The University is rethinking how it structures academic roles, recognises contributions and enables career growth. The Academic Career and Reward Framework (ACRF) aims to be a transformative proposal, designed to enhance transparency, support academic progression and align Oxford’s practices with those of its peer institutions.

The ACRF project emerged from a recognition that Oxford’s existing academic pay and promotion mechanisms do not fully support the needs of our workforce, as they lack transparency and do not always reflect the complex balance of responsibilities encompassed by academic roles. Additionally, the Pay and Conditions Review highlighted challenges faced by academic staff balancing high workloads with expectations of excellence across research and education, and it revealed an appetite for greater clarity around training, promotion and development opportunities.  

In addition to being strongly informed by the Pay and Conditions review, the ACRF project is linked to targets in the University’s Strategic Plan and is a key component of the People Strategy’s commitment to enabling talent to thrive. It proposes a new approach – a structure designed to support academic success across multiple pathways and career stages – that enables the University to recognise excellence, in all its forms, fairly and transparently.  

Over the last 12 months, following discussion at the ACRF Steering Group, project leads have coordinated an extensive programme of engagement involving staff, trade unions, divisional boards and colleges which has informed the framework’s development.

Whilst this process of co-creation is ongoing, the framework is now at a stage where its shape and purpose can be shared more broadly. The initial phase of implementation will apply to staff with academic employment function at grade 9 and above, with the intention that future phases will incorporate staff at grade 8 and below. It is anticipated that clinicians, and other staff groups, will come into scope in future phases. 

The ACRF: key components 

• Job families: Research-focused, Research and Education, Education-focused 

• Promotion criteria: each job family has clearly articulated promotion pathways, with advancement determined by assessment against a transparent set of criteria appropriate to the role and career stage

• Career stages: delineated by the titles Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor 

Researchers and academics will be incorporated into a unified framework. This will define a set of academic job families and associated career stages, to support individuals in developing careers reflecting their strengths, ambitions and circumstances.

Importantly, the ACRF creates dedicated space for educational specialists to thrive: a significant step toward recognising the full value of teaching within the University’s reward and progression structures. This supports parity of esteem between research and education and affirms that excellence in both areas simultaneously is not a requirement for career progression.  

The three job families are: 

• Research and Education: Academics in this job family balance responsibilities across both research and teaching, contributing to the University’s intellectual output and educational mission.
• Research-focused: Roles in this family concentrate on research, innovation and societal impact, with a focus on generating and applying knowledge both within and beyond academia. 
• Education-focused: This family’s roles focus primarily on teaching, learning, supervision and educational leadership.  

Each job family includes clearly articulated promotion pathways, with advancement determined by successful assessment against a transparent set of criteria appropriate to the role and career stage. In some circumstances, it will also be possible for staff to move between the job families. 

Progression through the career stages of the framework will replace Recognition of Distinction, Professorial Merit Pay and recruitment and retention supplements. In this way, individualised exercises in determining an academic’s ‘value’ will be replaced with fair, transparent and role-specific assessment. Career stages will be delineated by the new titles Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor instead of the various different titles currently in use.  

Beyond recruitment and promotion, the ACRF is designed to support workload planning, career development and institutional strategy. The framework includes descriptions of the division of academic time, to provide a guide for staff and to aid workload allocation and management.

By clarifying expectations for each career stage and providing consistent terminology, the framework aims to empower staff to engage in constructive conversations about career goals and development needs. At departmental level it provides a shared language for workforce planning and clearer guidance for evaluating contributions. For the University, the framework creates a stronger foundation for excellence in education and research, aligned with global best practice and Oxford’s strategic aims. 

A collaborative effort

The framework has been developed collaboratively, shaped by regular working groups and ongoing discussions across the collegiate University. This iterative process ensures it reflects the values and needs of the Oxford community. Its success relies on continued engagement and dialogue.  

This framework rewards excellence in its many forms and supports diverse academic careers, laying the groundwork for a thriving, inclusive and sustainable future. A consultation period is currently planned for Michaelmas term 2025 and more details on this will follow.  

In the meantime, there are many ways in which you can engage with the framework’s development: please find out who your Steering Group representative is and get in touch, visit the ACRF project website and engage with the project team by emailing academic.framework@admin.ox.ac.uk.