Studies in Higher Education

Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2007, pp. 633–646

Responses to a policy initiative: the case

of Centres for Excellence in Teaching
and Learning
David Gosling and Andrew Hannan*
University of Plymouth, UK
Taylor
Studies
10.1080/03075070701573799
CSHE_A_257235.sgm
0307-5079
Original
Society
502007
32
andy.hannan@plymouth.ac.uk
AndrewHannan
00000October
and
in
for
Article
Higher
(print)/1470-174X
Francis
Research
2007
Education
into Higher
(online)
Education

This article considers the impact of a major government initiative to reward and promote excellence
in teaching and learning in higher education. The proposal to create Centres for Excellence in
Teaching and Learning in England’s universities and colleges of higher education was first
announced in 2003. A two-stage bidding process took place over most of 2004 and the chosen
centres were established from April 2005. The article reports the findings from interviews with
24 staff involved in a total of 25 bids from 14 institutions (including one further education college
taking part in a collaborative bid). It shows how members of staff from different types of institution
came to understand the initiative, how they responded to its requirements, how the bidding process
itself shaped the proposals, and the individual and institutional effects of both failure and success in
the bidding rounds.

Introduction
The establishment in 2005 of 74 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
(CETLs) represents the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s
(HEFCE’s) largest ever single funding initiative designed to support the development
of teaching and learning. As originally launched, the CETLs were to get a total of
£315 million over five years from 2005–06 to 2009–10. Each CETL was to receive
recurrent funding, ranging from £200,000 to £500,000 per annum for five years, and
a capital sum ranging from £0.8 million to £2 million. An additional allocation of
capital funding of £20.86 million was made in 2006, which was shared amongst the
established CETLs on a pro rata basis (further information can be found at http://
www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/TInits/cetl/).

*Corresponding author: Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth, Exmouth EX8 2AT, UK.
Email: a.hannan@plymouth.ac.uk

ISSN 0307-5079 (print)/ISSN 1470-174X (online)/07/050633–14

© 2007 Society for Research into Higher Education
DOI: 10.1080/03075070701573799
634 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

This was a major initiative designed both to reward and promote excellence in
teaching and learning across the higher education curriculum, although in practice
some subjects have been more favoured than others (HEFCE, 2005). It is also
intended to form a counterbalance to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The
RAE rates research outputs from each UK university department every 5–7 years as
the basis for the selective allocation, via the national funding councils, of government
money to underpin research activity (for details see http://www.rae.ac.uk/), and has
proved to be a major preoccupation of UK institutions. It was hoped that the large
sums of money attached to the CETL initiative would give institutions an incentive
to raise the status of teaching and learning vis-à-vis research (Department for Educa-
tion and Skills [DfES], 2003). HEFCE funding for teaching had previously been
largely driven by student numbers and the nature of the subjects studied, but here was
an initiative that would mimic the selectivity built into the RAE and promote compe-
tition between institutions in making claims for the excellence of their teaching. Over-
all, it constitutes a fascinating case of an attempt to encourage innovation in higher
education that is of interest beyond the UK, given its scale and the lessons to be
learned about individual and institutional responses to a policy initiative from central
government.
The model of change being employed was based on the theory that rewarding those
already doing well, by establishing them as ‘beacons’ of excellence, was the way to
improve overall standards; rather than allocating funds on a pro rata basis to all
institutions for this purpose, or providing extra resources to those that are judged to
need improvement. This approach follows a somewhat similar model adopted for UK
schools (Webster, 2001; Rudd et al., 2004), that was inspired by examples from the
USA. The original invitation to bid for funds (HEFCE, 2004a) expressed it as follows:

The purpose of CETLs is to reward excellent teaching practice and to invest in that prac-
tice further in order to increase and deepen its impact across a wider teaching and learning
community . ..We invite institutions to demonstrate how their identified excellence is
reflected in and advanced by the proposed focus of the CETL. (p. 1)

To be successful, bidders had to show (mostly at stage one of the process) that their
team had achieved excellence with regard to their chosen field, as evidenced by
external recognition, quality ratings and various awards, and (mostly at stage two)
that they had a viable scheme to develop further and disseminate good practice both
within and beyond their institutions. Applicants also had to provide details of
schemes for rewarding those who had achieved the excellence that was the basis of
the proposed CETL.
At stage one of the bidding process, 259 applications were received from 126
institutions. HEFCE (2004b, p. 1) was able to claim that ‘Almost all universities
submitted individual or lead collaborative bids, and all were represented in at least
one bid. The majority of other higher education institutions submitted either individ-
ual or lead collaborative bids’. Each institution was limited to a certain number of
lead bids according to the size of its student population, up to a maximum of three
plus one collaborative bid. One hundred and six bids, of which 24 were collaborative,
 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 635

were selected to proceed to stage two. A total of 74 CETLs, of which 19 are collabo-
rative, were eventually approved. Thirty-two of the CETLs are based at or led by ‘old’
universities (established prior to 1992), 31 at ‘new’ universities, 5 at institutions that
applied as colleges of higher education (several of these have recently received univer-
sity status), and 6 at specialist institutions of various kinds. The degree of interest in
the initiative was thus considerable, which is perhaps unsurprising given the amount
of money on offer.

The project
The research reported here is part of a larger project that has examined the impact of
this initiative through all its stages, from first bids to implementation. We have inves-
tigated how members of staff from different types of institution came to understand
the initiative, how they responded to its requirements, how the bidding process itself
shaped the proposals, the individual and institutional effects of both failure and
success in the bidding rounds, and the way in which proposals have begun to be put
into effect.
This article draws predominantly on the data collected prior to the launch of the
successful CETLs, in which we conducted interviews with 24 members of staff (six
of them twice) who were bid-writers or bid coordinators (and sometimes both) for a
total of 25 CETL proposals (12 of which failed), from 13 institutions and from one
collaborating further education college. The original intention was to interview staff
from just five institutions (one college of higher education, two old and two new
universities), and to include for each one coordinator of bids (e.g. the Pro Vice-Chan-
cellor for Learning and Teaching or the head of an educational development unit) and
the bid leaders. We found, though, that we had to extend our sample to include more
institutions that were successful, whilst keeping a similar balance of institutional types.
In the event we interviewed seven members of staff from five old universities, 12
from six new universities and four from two colleges (one of which is now a
university), as well as one member of staff from a further education college that was
collaborating with a university and a college of higher education. Of the 24 inter-
viewees, 10 were associated with bids that failed, 11 with bids that succeeded and
three with bids of both kinds. We have now begun to follow a number of CETLs
through the full five years of their existence, including some we have had contact with
since the launch of the initiative, in order to gauge their impact within and beyond
their own institutions, interviewing both participants and those the CETLs attempt
to reach.
In this article we report the initial phase of the research, which focused on the
perspectives of those involved in the bidding process. We wanted to know their
thoughts on the likely impact of the CETL initiative, on how effective it would be in
achieving its aims, and on their experience as contributors to bids. We were interested
in how notions of excellence were constructed, how personal beliefs were related to
the demands of the initiative, and how both success and failure were experienced.
These and other issues are examined below with respect to a number of questions
636 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

posed in the interview survey. Wherever possible the account is constructed through
the presentation of quotations from statements made by interviewees, whilst they
were taking part in a selection process designed to reward excellence, so as to give
voice to their experiences in all their intensity.
In what follows the individual interviewees are coded in terms of their institution
(‘N’ for post-1992 university, ‘O’ for pre-1992 university, ‘CHE’ for then college of
higher education, ‘FE’ for a further education college collaborating with a higher
education institution), their own role (‘B’ for bidder, ‘C’ for a coordinator or
manager, ‘BC’ if both), and the end result of the application or applications with
which they were involved (‘S’ for success, ‘F’ for failure, and ‘SF’ where the person
was involved with more than one bid with different outcomes).

The concept of excellence and evidence for excellence

Two important changes took place between the original announcement of the CETLs
in the White Paper (DfES, 2003) and the launch of the initiative. At first, the empha-
sis was on a subject-based approach and the Government’s desire to ‘celebrate excel-
lent practice in teaching departments’ (DfES, 2003, p. 58), but, after a process of
refinement, the consultation paper later that same year encouraged institutions to
define ‘distinctive practices’ that ‘could be based in a department at subject level, or
equally could cut across subject department, faculty, or institutional boundaries’
(HEFCE, 2003, p. 4). The second major change was that the ‘Centres of Excellence’
proposed in the White Paper (DfES, 2003) had become ‘Centres for Excellence in
Teaching and Learning’ (HEFCE, 2003). This marked a significant shift in
approach, because it signalled that the centres were not only being recognised for the
excellence already achieved, but they ‘should also represent a future investment to
develop good practice further for the benefit of students and for quality enhancement
in the sector more generally’ (HEFCE, 2003, p. 3). The invitation to bid for funds
(HEFCE, 2004a) did not specify any criteria for excellence. It explicitly rejected the
notion of there being an ‘absolute’ or ‘gold standard’ notion of excellence (p. 13).
Instead, institutions were ‘invited to define their own areas of excellence, evidenced
by scholarly practice and a successful track record of excellence in teaching and
learning outcomes’ (p. 1).
The extent to which bidders found the task of defining excellence to be problematic
varied considerably. We found that for some bid-writers ‘excellence’ was regarded as
self evident—as one person put it, ‘that was the easy bit’ (N.B.S.16). For others,
especially those from failed bids, there was an acute awareness that the concept of
excellence was relative to the beliefs and values about pedagogy of the person making
the judgement:
I think it raises all sorts of issues about what is excellence anyway. (0.B.F.3)
As soon as one uses the word excellence there is a sense of who has judged it to be
excellent. (FE.B.F.20)
It is a subjective thing and there are many different criteria that could be used. (N.C.F.14)
 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 637

Excellence, rather like the concept of ‘quality’, is open to a variety of understandings

(Harvey, 2002). Some defined ‘excellence’ as meaning ‘exceptional’, perhaps because
a competitive bidding process encourages institutions to claim that their approach to
teaching is distinctive in some way:
Certainly in my mind I was looking for something where I thought, yes we are doing some-
thing that it is a little bit different. (N.B.S.16)
It actually might have a reasonable chance of getting through because they thought it was
a novel area. (O.B.S.10)

It appears that HEFCE agreed with this presumption, since in their feedback on stage
one bids they commented that there were bids in which ‘the pedagogic practice was
sometimes relatively commonplace and unable in itself to support the claim for excel-
lence’ (HEFCE, 2004b). Others felt that they had not faced up to this definitional
issue:
I don’t think we did define excellence. We scrambled around for evidence all over the place
for different kinds and decided which ones were most relevant to use for the bid. (O.B.S.5)

This illustrates the close relationship between what was chosen as ‘excellent’ and
those activities within the institution for which evidence could be found for which
bidders believed HEFCE would be looking. This was one of the key ways in which
the published criteria for the bidding process influenced the selection of what was to
be regarded as excellent:
So the internal judgements would align with those that we would expect to be made, or
the criteria that we would expect to be deployed, by the funding council. The first one of
those would be ‘Is there likely to be sufficient evidence of excellence in the chosen area or
theme?’ So, yes, that was paramount. (N.C.S.1)

Some bids relied on what evidence there was to be had:

We had to try and shape it around things like Quality Assurance Agency judgements and
things that were being said in overview before and to say; well actually we are quite good
at that. So we do rely quite heavily on measures against published statements. (FE.B.F.20)

Others decided on what they thought was excellent, or what project the institution
wanted to pursue, before they started to look for confirmation in the evidence
available to them:
We decided on the bids before we looked at the evidence. (N.B.S.16)

In some cases there was a hedging of bets because of uncertainty about what was
required:
We used a fairly broad base of evidence … partly because it was not clear what the funding
council would find most convincing really. (N.C.SF.12)

It was suggested that the nature of the CETL bidding process discouraged claims for
excellence based on a pervasive culture of excellence in teaching, which might
incorporate a variety of pedagogical approaches, and favoured those taking a specific
innovative approach that could become a ‘project’:
638 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

I think what it is that makes excellence in this context (in an old university) isn’t so
identifiable as a project- like thing. Whereas in post 1992 institutions it is. (O.B.S.5)

However, in a new university the point was made that excellent teachers were
distributed across the institution rather than located in one particular area, or
involved in one particular pedagogical approach:
To have them located as centres of excellence was implying that you potentially had all
your best people in one place, whereas … there are certainly excellent individuals or teams
quite disparately distributed. (N.C.F.14)

A possible conclusion to be drawn from comments such as these is that the examples
of excellence in teaching to be found in the CETLs were likely to be biased in two
ways: first, towards those types of excellence which lent themselves to being developed
in a project form rather than as aspects of a general culture of a university or depart-
ment, where excellence resided in the range of approaches to teaching; and second,
towards those behaviours which had already received approval through existing reward
mechanisms that were assumed to provide tangible evidence of excellence. Examples
of the latter were the awards of the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learn-
ing (a HEFCE scheme for encouraging innovative pedagogy through the funding of
projects; see http://www.le.ac.uk/ncteam/fdtl/), National Teaching Fellowships (pres-
tigious awards made to exceptional teachers; see http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/
NTFS.htm) and Quality Assurance Agency scores (allocated through a process of
subject review involving departmental visits to each higher education institution; see
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/). However, the wide range of ‘subjects’ and ‘themes’ that
received approval through the award of a CETL suggests that the members of the
selection panel were themselves quite eclectic in their conceptions of excellence.

The relationship between personal beliefs and the policy requirements

Skelton (2005), in his discussion of the impact of awards for excellence, comments
on the alienating effect on individuals who have to comply with processes with which
they are in fundamental disagreement:
Although temporary comfort can be found in living according to the expectation of others,
following such a path is ultimately alienating, since in doing so one becomes dislocated
from one’s self. (p. 12)

We found evidence of this ‘dislocation’, or what has been called ‘values schizophre-
nia’ (Ball, 2003), in a number of our respondents. One successful bid-writer went so
far as to say when asked about her personal view of CETLs:
Waste of money and rubbish [laughs]. My last year has been entirely ruined by something
that I don’t believe in. (N.B.S.16)

Another, whose bid did not succeed, told us:

My personal view is that I’m very antagonistic towards the whole notion of beacons.
(O.BC.F.3)
 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 639

Perhaps rather more typical would be the following expression of ‘reservations’ about
the CETL initiative from another successful bid-writer:
Speaking as an individual and not for the institution I would have some reservations about
the idea of CETLs. (N.C.S.1)

The reasons given for ‘reservations’ varied. For some it was that a competitive
bidding process would create ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Typical words used were ‘exclu-
sive’ and ‘divisive’:
Yes, the problem with the CETLs is the focus on excellence which is necessarily an exclu-
sive concept. It has to be that some are and some aren’t. (O.BC.F.3)
As a policy initiative it is very difficult to justify why some individual institutions will be
given this significant level of funding and other institutions who perhaps require support
to develop practices won’t get it. So I think their idea of establishing 70 centres for
excellence is divisive. (O.B.F.9)

Another ground for scepticism was concern about the quality of the activity that
was to be funded, given the amount of money involved over a five-year period.
Others were concerned about questions of value for money and the scale of funding.
Several of those who had been involved in the Higher Education Academy
subject centres (24 of which had established by the UK funding councils to support
the development of teaching and learning in their respective fields; see http://
www.heacademy.ac.uk/SubjectNetwork.htm), had anxieties about how so many new
centres would complicate the national picture for support of teaching and learning.
For example:
In my judgement to have 70 of these things is far too many. I do not think higher education
can cope with this new complicated landscape. It has just got used to working with
24 subject centres—the fact that there are now going to be in a sense a hundred of these
sorts of centres I just think is indigestible or potentially so. (N.C.S.1)

The reasons for the bid-writers’ personal reservations about the CETL initiative
clearly varied, but all bid-writers had to find ways of squaring their personal beliefs
with the professional imperative to write a successful bid. Skelton (2005), in his
research into National Teaching Fellowships, found that there were four kinds of
relationships (correspondence, playing the game, reframing and strategic compli-
ance) between what the fellows said in their application and their personal beliefs. It
is possible to discern similar patterns among the CETL bid-writers.

● Correspondence. For some there was a correspondence between their view and what
they were required to do by the CETL initiative:
I think it has probably been as good a way as any to throw a lot of money at it and to make
it focus on centres and make universities go through this process of identifying what they
do that is really good and building on those ideas. (O.B.S.13)

● Playing the game. Unlike Bourdieu’s concept of ‘illusio’ in which agents involved in
the ‘game’ within a social field do not perceive it as such (Lucas, 2001), there is
evidence of some very conscious game-playing among CETL bidders:
640 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

We have got no alternative but to play but that is not saying that one therefore agrees to
these sort of initiatives with anything more than a rather large sigh. (O.B.F.11)

● Reframing. This response was found in those who attempted to turn the bidding
process to their own advantage even though they had concerns about the idea of
CETLs:
We had real concerns about the CETL as being seen as a kind of selective reward. Those
were our reservations right from the very beginning and I think that that has underpinned
the way that we have developed the bid, that we didn’t want it to be seen like that.
(N.B.S.18)

In some cases ‘reframing’ was achieved by using the bid to advance projects which
met institutional strategic needs, rather than identifying the most excellent practice.
● Strategic compliance. A familiar position adopted by successful bidders was to
separate their personal views of the CETL strategy from the advantage they stood
to gain from being successful:
Again if you ask me personally about me and my project I am very positive about it. If you
ask me to take a HEFCE position, as a strategic position about higher education, I would
feel entirely different. (O.B.S.5)

Bid-writers put aside their personal view of CETLs, and became strongly motivated
to achieve what became seen as both a personal project and something important to
the institution. This phenomenon was particularly noticeable at stage two, when
bidders perceived that their chance of success was so much greater.
However, it would be quite wrong to create the impression that, because individu-
als had reservations about the idea of CETLs, they could not find the exercise of
developing the bid and working with colleagues in their institution a rewarding and
creative process. Once the motivation to achieve a CETL had taken hold at stage two,
many of the bid-writers found the experience of developing the bid exciting and stim-
ulating. The constraint of writing a bid within a set of rules laid down by the funding
council was often frustrating for the bid-writers, but the discipline imposed also seems
to have stimulated some genuinely critical and rigorous thinking about teaching and
learning.
If we look more closely at the intellectual processes teams reported they were
engaging in at stage two, we see examples of:
● clarification of pedagogic ideas, leading to better understanding:
I suppose we developed our understanding of what we were doing so we understood better
what it was really about as a result of spending a lot more time thinking about it. (O.B.S.5)

● testing whether ideas were workable:

We were testing assumptions that we had set down at stage one against reality and criticis-
ing ourselves basically and saying we’ve said that but will that really work? … We actually
have to think in much more depth about what is possible. (O.B.S.8)

● critically examining how far ideas would be transferable to new contexts:

 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 641

So although it is a good model—it is a model of excellence—to say that we would be able

to transfer it is actually a bit naïve. (O.B.S.8)

● achieving coherence from disparate ideas and practices:

When we got to stage two and we really started to think in some depth about how and
whether these things would connect. (O.B.S.8)

● application of theories drawn from the literature:

We used ideas from Knight and Yorke about employability … building students’ self-
efficacy and meta-cognition so that they can reflect on their learning. (N.B.S.18)

● developing ideas about research and scholarship:

There was much more of an emphasis on research and scholarship and that hadn’t
necessarily come through, even though it may have been there, very strongly in the first
stage. (O.B.F.9)

● aligning intellectual ideas with a business plan and, as a result, developing new
forms of team working:
We were stretching out more to use the expertise of colleagues in areas such as estates and
finance, personnel, business planning, pedagogic research and so on. (N.C.S.1)

● discovering ways of achieving effective collaborative working:

People understand a lot more about what each other does now than they did in the
beginning so in that sense it has been useful. (O.B.S.8)

The biggest challenges to bid-writers came from a variety of sources. Some, not
surprisingly, were to do with the internal workings of the institution, and in writing a
business plan. For many bid-writers this was unfamiliar territory and they found it
challenging:
I’m an academic which means that I don’t understand business plans. I like spending
money, but I don’t really understand where it comes from. (O.B.S.13)

For some, but not by any means all, acquiring the appropriate inputs from the estates
department for the capital part of the bid was a difficulty. Another common problem
was finding ways in which staff could be rewarded that was consistent with institu-
tional policies on human resources and equal opportunities. For virtually all our
respondents the writing of the bid (particularly at stage two) was time consuming,
emotionally draining and technically challenging.

Impact on institution of getting a CETL

Prior to the announcement of the results of the final round of the bidding process, it
was generally acknowledged that the money and the prestige of the award would have
a significant impact in raising the profile of learning and teaching in institutions, even
those primarily committed to research. In some institutions that made it through to
the final stage of the bidding process, there was evidence that the effect had already
been considerable:
642 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

One thing I have not mentioned is that a critical point … probably early September, the
Vice-Chancellor, both in informal and in formal contexts began to insist that the CETLs
should be transformational in purpose, in conception and so on … clearly he had become
enthused by this process in a significant way, but I cannot believe of any other way I could
have pushed forward learning and teaching in this university and have the Vice-Chancellor
saying ‘I insist on transformation’ and … if he truly follows through on that, then it is
hoped that we can create synergies across the CETLs from some sort of central university
R&D institution then—wow. I cannot easily think of other mechanisms which could have
given us this potential. (N.B.S.17)

We found that senior managers were strongly supportive of their institution’s CETL
bid in all types of institution. Clearly, the magnitude of the CETL funding was impor-
tant:
[There was] some excitement also because of the sheer scale of the investment. The sums
of money that we were going to be bidding for were large enough to make a really signifi-
cant difference even if we only were awarded one of these new centres for excellence. So,
yes, the institution was very welcoming of the idea, from day one quite supportive of all
those of us who were involved. (N.C.S.1)

For many it was seen as a validation of the efforts that been put into raising the profile
of learning and teaching over several years:
I think the point is that the CETL is a culmination of a process of raising the profile of
learning and teaching in the university; given that we are a former Poly [polytechnic] there
might be an assumption that learning and teaching already had a high profile, but this is
not actually the case. (N.B.S.18)

However, there were concerns about aspects of the CETL initiative. Its overall
impact was seen to depend on who and what got funded:
We’re working very much at the margin here … if they want the fifty percent participation
rate then it is institutions like ours that are going to be important in helping students
through their courses and I think people are seeing that this is the Government’s chance
to show that that is the important area, they are going to support teaching and I think that
people will look at where the bids have gone and what the bids have gone on and make that
judgement. (CHE.B.F.15)

Many respondents saw problems ahead for CETLs in having a wider impact across
their own institutions:

The reality is that there will be some staff who are going to be more involved in its [the
CETL’s] activities than others … we are also sensitive to the fact that within the University
we had two bids that didn’t get through stage one. One of them … I can understand why
that didn’t get through, but there are other people who put a tremendous amount of work
into the stage one bid who I think are still smarting about the fact that they weren’t
successful. I think the biggest challenge is going to be making sure that the CETL is not
seen as something that is rewarding just some parts of the University, that it’s you know,
[them] again. (N.B.S.18)

The apparent one-off nature of the exercise was seen by some to be a serious
drawback. Other parts of the institutions where there had been success, and other
institutions where there had been none, were not going to bother to learn the lessons
 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 643

of how to be successful themselves if the opportunity wasn’t going to come around

again (in contrast to the RAE which took place periodically on a fairly regular basis):
I think it will also build some resentment because some people will be singled out in
this manner, others won’t. They may have a view about the credibility of the whole
process anyway and the fact also that this may well only be a one-off and therefore there
are very few if any future opportunities to do the same sort of thing, may cause some
resentment. So, I think we’ll have differing perceptions within the institution about it.
(O.BC.F.3)

One interviewee told us that the effect of rewarding one already very successful part
of the institution might actually distort overall plans:
I am not convinced yet as to how the … CETL if it is successful will benefit the rest of the
University. It will do great things for the … School but I suspect I am going to have to
struggle to see how it supports the rest of the University … All those [involved] would go
down their own route and not take notice. (N.C.SF.7)

Impact of failure
Considering the prospect of failure, most applicants thought that the developments
they had in mind would still make some progress, but that this would be slower and
on a smaller scale. Most interviewees thought that the process itself had helped bring
people, even different institutions, together and that they would seek ways of taking
things forward, making use of alternative funding if this were available. As the CETL
bids had to be in areas where they already had some excellence, they were not about
to abandon these just because they were not awarded CETL status. In several cases
the bidding process had given extra prominence to an aspect of learning and teaching
that would continue to benefit. For one bid prior to the announcement of the
decision, there was already a contingency plan for alternative funding, such was the
momentum behind the idea gained by bringing people together from across the insti-
tution. One of those responsible for bid-writing thought that the experience would be
beneficial personally in developing her skills. However, the possible negative impacts
that were identified were considerable:
● Fury, disappointment and disillusionment. Those involved in unsuccessful bids
would have invested a huge amount of their time for no reward.
● Several interviewees thought that the ideas behind the CETLs would go forward,
but that failure would make it a difficult climate in which to excite people.
● One interviewee thought that he and his unit would be under scrutiny as this would
be the third failure in a row to obtain such funding.
When we interviewed those who had actually experienced failure after the results
were announced, we indeed found that one of them (but not the person referred to
above), was being investigated by his institution:
What the Pro Vice-Chancellor did was to ask another member of staff to investigate the
whole process—to look at how we decided to submit what we submitted and what we
submitted and to write a report about it. The purpose, of course, was to try and ensure
644 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

that should any such opportunities arise in the future, if there are any lessons to be learnt,
that we learnt them. I regard that as a potential slight on me. (O.BC.F.3)

However, he and other applicants bemoaned the apparent one-off nature of the
exercise, which meant that they were unable to apply any lessons they had learned.
He thought that although work on bids had not been wasted, and the ideas therein
would be carried forward in a reduced manner, the lack of success had, if anything,
lowered the status of teaching in the institution. Another failed applicant, who had
led an individual bidding team rather than a support unit, thought that the process
had resulted in some ‘stroking’ of those involved, making them feel valued by their
institution, but that the actual gains had been nil. Indeed, he thought that there had
been no change in the way things were, other than the considerable amount of wasted
effort that was not paid for (a potential problem in a system that relied on full
economic costing). Elsewhere, failed CETL proposals were going ahead in reduced
form, making use of alternative funds where these were available. In the case of an
institution where considerable investment was being made, the interviewee thought
that this would have happened regardless of the CETL initiative as these were in any
case institutional priorities. She did, though, believe that CETL funding would have
made a significant difference to the impact of the schemes in terms of both internal
and external dissemination.
Many interviewees commented on the cost of the bidding process, and made
unfavourable comparisons with the institutional strand of the Teaching Quality
Enhancement Fund (Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consult-
ing, 2005) that had been used to support all institutions that had submitted their own
plans for developing their teaching. The following quotation from a failed bidder
illustrates the kinds of points made:
There was considerable disappointment [when failure was announced]. … there was
disappointment and anger. It reinforced our dislike for the way that the funding council
were approaching the allocation of funds. It’s our money in a sense, and if they’d allocated
it pro rata then some strategic management could have achieved better results.
Writing the bid involves a huge amount of work that is not resourced … The impact on
institutions of preparing these bids, particularly ones of this size, is considerable for what
is after all only marginal funding. Yet we can’t afford not to do it. (CHE.C.F.6)

Conclusion
How, then, might we describe the responses of institutions to the CETL initiative?
For those who made bids, the opportunity to be awarded a CETL was seen as a way
to attract major funding for teaching and learning, both in institutions for which it was
already a high priority, and in some others where a commitment to research excel-
lence was seen to take precedence. Bidders were strongly influenced in shaping their
proposals by what they perceived to be the status of their institution and its overall
character. There were reservations about the scheme, but these were put aside in the
effort to compete and to win the reward of a CETL, which was seen as significant in
terms of both money and prestige. Although many of those involved in the bids could
 Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 645

identify positive consequences of the application process, there were also those who
bemoaned its competitive and selective nature, which had necessitated high levels of
personal commitment. The response to failure, both as envisaged and as experienced,
varied according to institution. Generally speaking, it seems that the more embedded
a CETL idea was already, the more chance it had of surviving the experience of
failure, albeit on a diminished basis.
In several ways the CETL initiative was seen as strange. For many, the reward of
individuals in what is often seen as a collaborative and collegial enterprise was
regarded as highly problematic. Far from encouraging the kind of conversations and
cooperative endeavours between innovators in higher education that can improve
teaching (D’Andrea & Gosling, 2005), the CETL competitive bidding process
discouraged the sharing of good practice outside of the bidding teams, and set insti-
tutions against each other if they were not involved in collaborative bids. It appeared
to be designed to make those already judged to be excellent even better than the rest,
and it did not seem to allow those who were not successful the chance to learn how
to do better next time, since there was apparently not going to be another round of
bids. Indeed, when an extra £20.86 million became available towards the end of 2005
it was simply distributed amongst the 74 CETLs already established. Many of those
we spoke to found it hard to see how the CETL initiative was part of an overall
strategy for enhancing teaching and learning in higher education. They thought that
the links with the Higher Education Academy subject centres were uncertain. They
queried the laissez faire approach to planning taken by the funding council, which
responded to bids received rather than targeting certain themes, curriculum areas or
strategic priorities. It was difficult for these interviewees to believe that establishing
74 CETLs would bring about the sort of general improvement of higher education
for which the Government was looking.
Hannan and Silver (2000), following their extensive survey of UK higher educa-
tion, identified five barriers to innovation in teaching and learning, of which the first
two were: low esteem of teaching and learning, compared with research; and lack of
recognition and interest by colleagues and people in authority (p. 115). Here, though,
was an initiative that, through the sheer scale of the funding behind it, made nearly
all institutions sit up and take notice, that challenged the primacy of research by
providing significant rewards for excellence in teaching, and that gave national recog-
nition to the efforts of those committed to innovation in teaching and learning. The
impact of the process of bidding, in both positive and negative aspects, has been
considerable and has been widely felt. However, it remains to be seen if the CETLs
themselves succeed in reaching beyond their boundaries, both within their own
institutions and externally, and whether the ideas they embody inspire others to
achieve the excellence for which they have been rewarded.

References
Ball, S. J. (2003) The teacher’s soul and terrors of performativity, Journal of Educational Policy,
18(2), 215–228.
646 D. Gosling and A. Hannan

D’Andrea, V. & Gosling, D. (2005) Improving teaching and learning in higher education: a whole
institution approach (Maidenhead, Open University Press).
Department for Education and Skills (2003) The future of higher education (London, HMSO).
Hannan, A. & Silver, H. (2000) Innovating in higher education: teaching, learning and institutional
cultures (Buckingham, Open University Press).
Harvey, L. (2002) Evaluation for what? Teaching in Higher Education, 7(3), 245–264.
Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2005) Summative evaluation of
the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF). Available online at: www.hefce.ac.uk/Pubs/
rdreports/2005/rd23_05/rd23_05.doc (accessed 22 August 2006).
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2003) Centres for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning: formal consultation (Bristol, HEFCE).
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2004a) Centres for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning: invitation to bid for funds (Bristol, HEFCE).
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2004b) Centres for excellence in teaching and learn-
ing—outcomes of bids. General feedback on stage one bids. Available online at: www.hefce.ac.uk/
learning/TInits/cetl/s1fback.doc (accessed 20 March 2006).
Higher Education Funding Council for England (2005) Centres for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning. Available online at: www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/TInits/cetl/final/brochure.pdf
(accessed 21 August 2006).
Lucas, L. (2001) The research game: a sociological study of academic research work in two universities,
unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry.
Rudd, P., Holland, M., Sanders, D., Massey, A. & White, G. (2004) Evaluation of the Beacon
Schools Initiative (Slough, National Foundation for Educational Research).
Skelton, A. (2005) Understanding teaching excellence in higher education: towards a critical approach
(London, Routledge).
Webster, D. (2001) Beacon Schools: New Labour education policy in a nutshell, Forum, 43(3),
127–130.