Tenure track evaluation criteria
Tenure track evaluation criteria are based on the principles of predictability, transparency, and comparability with international standards. The performance is evaluated through the following dimensions:
- Research and/or artistic and professional work,
- Teaching, and
- Service (activity in scientific community, academic leadership and societal interaction)
The evaluation is carried out as a comprehensive overall assessment, and the same criteria are used both in recruitment and in promotion assessments.
The criteria used in tenure and promotion reviews as well as in recruiting to tenured levels are described in more detail in Appendix 3 of the Aalto Tenure Track Policies and Procedures -document.
Assistant Professors
When recruiting for first term Assistant Professor positions, the evaluation is mainly based on the potential of the candidate in the evaluated dimensions. When recruiting or reviewing for second term Assistant Professor positions, the evaluation is based on both merits and potential.
In a systematic evaluation of the potential for a successful career on the tenure track, the following factors may be considered:
- Early exceptional research or artistic merits
- Early exceptional teaching merits
- Rate of progress in earning merits
- Comparison and benchmarking of the candidates (including bibliometric indicators)
- Independence and originality
- Networking
- Recommendation letters
The Aalto guidelines for assessing the candidate's potential can be found here.
Associate and Full Professors
Candidates recruited or promoted to the level of Associate or Full Professor must have high academic merits, be of first rank among distinguished members of their discipline, and must show a continued contribution to academic research.
According to the Aalto tenure track policy, the minimum requirements for reaching tenure are:
- Excellence in research and/or artistic work and high-quality teaching, and/or
- Excellence in teaching and high-quality research and/or artistic work.
The following criteria are considered key criteria when reviewing a candidate for tenure and determining excellence in either research/artistic work and/or teaching:
- The most important publications and their quality and impact including the quality of the publication forums from the viewpoint of the candidate’s field of research; and/or the most important artistic works and their quality and impact.
- Research/artistic work in other universities and research institutes or in professionally relevant positions (including doctoral studies and the post-doctoral phase).
- The ability to build and lead a research/artistic team including possible doctoral students and post-doctoral research associates or artistic professionals supervised by the candidate.
- The capability of raising competitive research funding or corresponding competitive funding in the artistic field.
- The ability to conduct independent research/artistic work.
- Teaching experience including supervision of doctoral, master and bachelor level theses.
- Development of teaching and experience in course development in the field.
- Pedagogical education and studies.
- The quality of student feedback.
- Collegial feedback (e.g., head of department, director of degree programme) and utilisation of student and collegial feedback in developing teaching.
- Teaching skills.
When recruiting or reviewing a candidate for promotion to the Full Professor level, the review should consider the key criteria described above in the dimensions of research/artistic work and teaching, with increased emphasis on the following:
- international (and national) visibility and standing of the candidate and her/his team in the field
- success in winning competitive funding
- achievements in doctoral education
- experience in curriculum development
In addition, the candidate for Full Professor is expected to have increasing contributions to service, for example, including the following activities:
- candidate’s outreach and dissemination of her/his work
- mentoring and coaching of junior colleagues
- formal training developing academic leadership
- academic leadership positions including committees and educational programs
- service to the scientific/artistic community and/or industry and society at large
For candidates in the career track, both tenure and promotion reviews focus mainly on merits achieved since the last review or recruitment.
For more detailed descriptions of evaluation processes and criteria, see the Aalto Tenure Track Policies and Procedures document.
Teaching Competence Assessment
The candidate’s teaching competence is assessed in academic recruitments as well as in advancement reviews: See the sections Comprehensive assessment of teaching competence and Teaching portfolio guidelines for candidate for information and instructions on teaching competence assessment and teaching portfolio.
Language requirements for tenure track
Candidates are required to have such fluency in English as is required for carrying out their duties. A foreign citizen or a non-native Finnish citizen may be appointed to a teaching or research post without demonstrating proficiency in the Finnish or Swedish languages.
School-specific criteria
In addition to the general Aalto evaluation criteria described above, each School has further specified their tenure track criteria: