Important Notice
(December 9 th, 2013)
As of December 1 st , 2013 TiSEM has a new HR policy. The following guidelines refer to the
situation before December 1st, 2013 and are only applicable to files that were submitted to the
FEC before December 1 st, 2013 or for assistant professors on tenure track who commenced
employment before December 1 st , 2013 and have chosen for the ‘old’ criteria (as laid down in
this guideline) as criteria for the tenure decision. These guidelines stay into effect till December
1 st, 2016
To all other situation the criteria laid down in the new HR policy apply.
As of December 1 st, 2013 the name of the FEC has changed into AC.
Faculty Evaluation Committee (Assessment Committee (AC) as of December 1 st, 2013)
The FEC is an advisory committee to the Faculty Management Team (FMT) of Tilburg School of
Economics and Management. Its role is to advise the dean and the Faculty Management team
on major career decisions for faculty members. These decisions concern the award of tenure,
promotion from assistant to associate professor (which often coincide with award of tenure),
promotion form associate professor to full professor 2 and promotion from full professor 2 to full
professor 1. The FEC’s role is to ensure sufficient objectivity, continuity and broad support within
the Faculty at large for such decisions.
Criteria
It is impossible to write down a full list of necessary and sufficient criteria for the major career
decisions. Moreover some decisions will be partially motivated by Market forces. On the other
hand an indication of criteria is essential to be able to implement the faculty’s long run policy
and to communicate the HRM policy to the outside world, including new hires.
The evaluation of faculty embers is characterized by several dimensions namely initial
education, academic research and institutional contributions (e.g. managerial tasks). The
relative importance of these dimensions in the career decisions may shift during the career. For
tenure decisions the emphasis lies on academic research and initial education. The other tasks
are of minor importance. For promotion to associate professor more stringent criteria on
academic research and initial education are important as well as excellence in at least one of
the dimensions of initial education and academic research, in addition tot the criteria for the
earliest career stapes.
A signal for a tenure decision and simultaneous promotion to associate professor is that the
candidate has at least very good teaching evaluations. This implies that the performance of
teaching is clearly above the average of colleagues in courses that are comparable in terms of
content, level and number of students over a period of time.
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010
The letter regarding a tenure and/ or promotion decisions written by the head of department
should in general provide strong argumentation in support of the case in point. This applies to
the evaluation of the candidate’s research performance (preferably supported by statistical ate
form CentER) but particularly to the interpretation of teaching evaluations. A sound
interpretation in the Head of Departments letter is most important. This applies to both the
tenure recommendations and the recommendations for associate professor appointments and
promotions.
Another signal that the candidate has at least a very good publication record. A very good
publication record is defined as a publication record that is sufficient to get tenure at top -20
universities in the world 1. A more concrete indication of a very good publication record is:
- One single-authored article in a top journal plus at least two other articles in a (top or) very
good journal, or
- One co-authored article in a top journal plus at least three other articles in (top or) very good
journal,
Where a list op top and very good journals per research group can be found on
http://center.uvt.nl/reseach/topvg.html. It should be emphasized however that both indications of
very good teaching evaluations and very good publication record are neither sufficient nor
necessary conditions for getting tenure and promotion to associate professor. Other criteria like
“what is the contribution of the candidate in the paper(s)”, “what is the innovative value of the
paper(s)”, “what is the (possible) impact of the paper(s)” are also important for the final
decision. Therefore as it is practice in other top universities, much effort will be invested by the
FEC in judging the publication record. At least 5 external referees, preferably from top 20
universities, will be asked to read the papers and to judge whether the publication record is
sufficient to get tenure and promotion to associate professor. The FEC will in principle advice
when at least three referees have replied. External letters of reference will not be made
available for the candidate to read. It is standard international practice that such letters are not
to be made available to the candidate and referees will implicitly assume that such
confidentiality is the case.
If there is market pressure to award tenure to tenure track assistant professors and very good
hope that the criteria for promotion to associate professor will be met soon, a tenure decisions
without promotion to associate professor is possible.
For promotion to full professor 2, excellence in academic research combined with at least very
good teaching evaluations over the last five years, or excellence in initial education combined
with at least a very good publication record over the last five years, and institutional
contributions are important signals.
Indications of excellence in academic research are:
a. Publications in top journals
b. Supervision of PhD students
c. (associate) editorships of scientific journals
d. Invited speaker on international conferences.
1
This is in line with TiSEM’s ambition to reach a top-20 position in the world both in economics and
business. TiSEM uses the econphd ranking (for economics) and the UT Dallasranking (for business
administration) to make this more concrete.
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010
To judge whether the excellence in academic research is fulfilled, at least five external referees
preferably form top 20 universities, will be asked. The FEC will take advice from at least three of
these referees as sufficient grounds for arriving at a recommendation. If less than three external
referees have given their advice after two months, the FEC may decide to give its
recommendation to the FMT regardless. As mentioned before, the letters written by the referees
are confidential and not available to the candidate.
Indications of excellence in initial education are:
a. To belong to the best teachers of the faculty (10% of the best ranked teachers) based on
teaching evaluations
b. Substantial contribution on innovation in education and/or educational programs
c. Noticeable contribution to the organization and development of educational programs
Examples of institutional contributions are innovation in education, acquisition of external
funding, contract research, executive teaching, contribution to the reputation of the school,
support of other faculty members, administrative positions, membership in boards and
committees and contributions to scholarly and professional associations.
For promotion from full professor 2 to full professor 1 the same applies but now high
international standards are taken into consideration.
Appointments as full professor 2 and 1 require approval by both the Executive board and the
Board of Governors of the university. For this approval the procedure for promotion to a full
professorship must be followed by the faculty. The university job ranking system (UFO), in
particular the content of the job profile Full professor will also be taken into account.
Assistant professors that are not on tenure track can get tenure provided a number of stringent
criteria are met. First of all this requires that the department has been sufficiently active in trying
to hire tenure track assistant professors but has been unable to hire them. Moreover the
following criteria have to be met:
- Very good teaching evaluations and very good evaluations of their other tasks
- At least some publications are accepted in very good journals during the last five years and
sufficient additional signs of research quality are available.
All criteria are meant as guidelines only.
Procedures
Department heads are invited to come up with recommendations for the FEC, every months.
Every faculty member si free to send his file (including a CV and course evaluations; possible
also letters of recommendation of external referees) tot the faculty management team (FMT)
applying for tenure or for promotion. The letter regarding a tenure and/ or promotion decision
written by the Head of Department should, in general, provide stronger argumentation in support
of the case in point. This applies to the evaluations of the candidates’ research performance
(preferably supported by statistical data from CentER) but particularly to the interpretation of
teaching. A sound interpretation in the Head of Departments letter is most importan t. This
applies to both the tenure recommendations and the recommendations for associate professor
appointments and promotions.
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010
The letter form the Head of Department should also provide a clear explanation of cases in
which tenure or promotion does not comply fully with the standard criteria but is justifiable on
other grounds (e.a. because a decision of this kind can provide positive input for the relevant
research groups in relation to comparable research groups).
The FEC only advises on complete files; see the appendix “Guidelines for the FEC files’ for a full
description.
The FEC reaches a recommendation about the faculty member concerned based upon the
personal file/ If the FEC finds it necessary, it may consult the Head of Department, internal a nd /
or external referees or others to gain additional information. For tenure decisions and promotion
to full professor at least five external referees preferably form top 20 universities will always be
consulted.
The FEC will take advice from at east three of these referees as sufficient grounds for arriving at
a recommendation. If less than three external referees have given their advice after two months,
the FEC may decide to give its recommendation to the FMT regardless.
The FEC sends its recommendation to the FMT. The FMT makes the final decision. In case this
decision is positive, the FMT makes it public.
Membership
The FEC consists of six full professors 1. Once every three years, three members are elected by
the faculty members (Ph.D. students excluded), the other three members are appointed by the
FMT. The FMT appoints one of the members as chairman.
More information
More information about the FEC can be obtained via the personnel department of the faculty,
hrm-tisem@tilburguniversity.edu.
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010
Appendix Guidelines for the FEC files
To facilitate the procedure the FEC suggests the following. The file should contain at least the
following items:
1.
2.
3.
4.
An extensive letter of recommendation in English from the Head of Department
A Curriculum Vitae in English conform the standard format below
Course evaluations
A list of at least ten names of external referees suggested by the Head of Department.
The named referees should be scholars form top universities who are leaders in their
field, but preferably not supervisors or co-authors; if the list contains supervisors and
co-authors, this fact should be clearly mentioned. Any author of a letter of
recommendation provided by the faculty member being evaluated may not appear on this
list of external referees. The FEC is not bound by this list of referees and is free to ask
for references from other scholars.
Proposed format for Curriculum Vitae
List everything in reverse chronological order (more recent first)
Categories
1. Education (degrees, specialization and dates)
2. Professional experience (employer, function, period)
3. Honours
3.1. Honorary doctorates
3.2. Prizes, awards
3.3. Fellowships
4. Publications
4.1. Books
4.2. Articles in refereed journals (indicate top (a) and very good (B) journals including the
research field)
4.3. Articles in non-refereed journals
4.4. Refereed publications in proceedings
4.5. Refereed publications in proceedings
4.6. Chapters in books
4.7. Book reviews
4.8. Unpublished and not yet accepted manuscripts (manuscripts in the publication process
should be mentioned with status such as “submitted”, “revise and resubmit”, “second revise and
resubmit”, and to which journals) accepted papers are listed in categories above )
4.9 Overview of citations (for promotion to Full professor 2 or 1)
5. Contributions to scholarly or professional journals
5.1. Editorships of journals
5.2. Membership in editorial boards
5.3. Refereeing
6. Contribution to scholarly or professional associations
6.1. Membership in executive positions of committees of scholarly associations
6.2. Other contributions to scholarly associations
6.3. Membership in scholarly or professional associations
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010
7. Research grants (type, amount, period)
8. PhD theses (name, university, date)
8.1. Supervised Ph.D. students
8.2. Membership of Ph.D. thesis committee
9. Teaching (for each course in the last 5 years)
Year, semester, course name, level, required or elective, number of students, teaching ratings of
all teachers involved in the course
10. Presentations, seminars, conferences, workshops
11. Contract research and consulting (kind, amount, date)
12. Managerial duties
Membership in committees, councils and boards on international, national, university, faculty and
department level, administrative positions in academic research and initial teaching, managerial
tasks
13. Other contributions/achievements not listed elsewhere
14. Date when c.v. was written
Approved by the faculty council on 21 January 2010