If SoTL is Not Recognised: Strategies for Creating Opportunities

Abstract

This chapter explores strategies to overcome barriers to faculty engagement in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in institutional contexts where SoTL is new or marginalised. We share stories of initiating and leading teaching development programmes, mentoring initiatives, and centres for teaching and learning, and illustrate how moments of deficit can become catalysts for institutional transformation. Through these accounts, we highlight how SoTL leadership emerges from local, often informal, acts of commitment and collaboration; how it reshapes pedagogical practice and the visibility and value of teaching itself. Ultimately, we argue that SoTL leadership is built through trust, relationships, and shared purpose, takes multiple forms, and is deeply contextual.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is often described as a systematic study of teaching and learning that needs to be made public, open to questioning and feedback, and available for others to draw on in their own teaching and research (Shulman, 1998). Still, in practice, SoTL is not always easy to explain. For some colleagues, it is something they may have heard of, but not quite understood. Others wonder and question whether SoTL is ‘real research’; what relevant methodologies are, what a generalisable study looks like, and what constitutes reliable evidence in SoTL. This is a result of how academia signals values and priorities, and how academic success and academic role are perceived.

The reality is that faculty need to navigate multiple roles, such as those of teachers, researchers, mentors, managers, administrators, advisors – and the key challenge lies in the teaching–research nexus which has often been associated with tension and conflicting agendas (Kaasila et al., 2021; McKinley et al., 2021). In many universities, research productivity carries far more weight than teaching quality, and faculty who devote time pursuing inquiry into their teaching or publishing SoTL studies, risk being seen as doing a less relevant or prestigious task – the one unrelated to their disciplinary research. As Kreber (2010) notes, the institutional orientation toward the teaching–research nexus deeply shapes what faculty can do and how they see themselves.

However, SoTL offers a way to bridge this divide. By treating teaching as a practical activity that can be rigorously studied (Boyer 1990), SoTL provides opportunities for integration (Gansemer-Topf, et al., 2022). It allows faculty to study their own teaching in systematic ways, to share insights with colleagues, and to build communities around a shared commitment to student learning. SoTL faculty not only deepen and expand their competencies to foster student learning, but also often initiate developmental activities for their colleagues within the institution. As agents, they can encourage others to take an active role in enhancing teaching and learning (Kreber, 2002; Wach, 2019). One way this agency becomes visible is through communities of practice (CoPs), where faculty committed to scholarly teaching gather to share ideas and collaborate.

But context always matters. The ways in which SoTL becomes established are highly context-dependent. In some institutions it emerges from top-down initiatives, with strategic support and formal recognition. In others it grows from the bottom up, through grassroots communities of faculty who support each other in undervalued and sometimes unsupportive environments. This chapter brings together our own stories of leading and establishing SoTL in different countries and institutional contexts. Each of us has faced challenges such as lack of understanding of what SoTL is, limited funding, a lack of strategic vision, or priority of research over teaching. Despite these obstacles, we found ways to gather people, to build communities, to show the relevance of SoTL in contexts where it was new, misunderstood, or marginalised. By reflecting on our SoTL journeys, we show how SoTL leadership takes shape on the ground and highlight how SoTL contributes to institutional learning: it is not only about changing how we teach but also changing the visibility of teaching itself. These experiences highlight how SoTL leadership can be enacted through programme design, mentoring, and community-building, even in the absence of formal recognition.

Strategies for overcoming institutional barriers: Planting the seeds of faculty communities invested in teaching

We now turn to strategies that evolved over time for overcoming barriers to faculty engagement in SoTL in particular institutional contexts. All of this happens in systems where there is no legal obligation for teaching certificates, meaning that expectations for faculty qualification are left to individual universities to decide. At the same time, faculty are expected to continually develop their skills, with performance evaluated across teaching, management, and research. The result is a varied landscape shaped by local policies and priorities, marked by a common reality: the absence of formal institutional obligation to support or recognise teaching development. We bring stories of initiating and leading the foundation of teaching development programmes, mentoring programmes and centres for teaching and learning in different contexts, and turning what may be described as moments of deficit into opportunities for change.

Preparation for teaching: a teaching excellence programme for doctoral students – Helga and Gorana’s story

In institutional contexts where SoTL is not yet firmly embedded, creating structured opportunities for faculty to engage in reflective and evidence-informed teaching is rarely straightforward. At the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, we grappled with this challenge and began experimenting with ways to foster SoTL through academic development initiatives. One of our earliest efforts was to design a programme that would introduce pedagogical training to doctoral students, offering them opportunities to engage with SoTL at the very beginning of their academic careers. This became the CEU Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Programme for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education, widely known as the Teaching Certificate Programme.

During the first decade of the Programme, CEU was a small but highly international, research intense, graduate-only institution. Because of the absence of large undergraduate cohorts, doctoral students had very limited teaching opportunities – usually just two or three mentored sessions as teaching assistants in courses led by faculty. It was precisely this constraint, combined with doctoral students’ strong interest in developing their pedagogical skills, that led us to launch the Teaching Certificate Programme in 2011. While the initiative arose from what might be perceived as a deficit context, it soon became an exemplar in the region and beyond (Dorner & Kumar, 2022; Misic, Rymarenko & Dorner, 2021).

In shaping the Programme, we built it around three pedagogical principles that, in our experience, have proven essential for integrating SoTL into teaching practice: peer teaching as a bridge between theory and practice, design for learning with an emphasis on course and assessment design, and support for becoming a reflective teacher who is aware of the research underpinning their practice (Misic, Rymarenko & Dorner, 2021). We operationalised these principles through collaborative course and syllabus design, co-teaching, peer observation, and scaffolded reflective assignments such as letters to future selves and teaching philosophy statements. The capstone project for the Programme was the creation of an online teaching portfolio, which provided a tangible product of students’ learning (Dorner & Renc-Roe, 2016).

As academic developers, we provided leadership and structure for the Programme, but what struck us most was its reciprocal nature and learning that emerged in practice between teaching assistants and faculty. While faculty brought deep disciplinary knowledge, the doctoral students, through their pedagogical training, often developed sharper insights into learning theories and instructional design. This created a genuine two-way exchange: faculty began integrating new strategies into their teaching, and doctoral students grew more confident and prepared for their future academic careers.

Some of the most powerful moments of cross-fertilisation came through practices we deliberately designed to open up dialogue between doctoral students and faculty. Poster sessions, for example, allowed doctoral students to present their innovative session designs, developed during the Programme, to the broader academic community. These events sparked vibrant conversations and gave faculty a window into new pedagogical approaches. Likewise, when doctoral students implemented innovative strategies in graduate-level courses, faculty observing them could witness these ideas in action. Since doctoral students always taught alongside faculty rather than independently, the classroom itself became a shared space for experimenting, observing, and rethinking teaching practice.

Looking back, we see how the Programme created not only a pathway for doctoral students to develop as reflective teachers but also a community where faculty and students could learn from one another. In this sense, the Programme became a lived example of how SoTL can be cultivated in contexts that might initially appear to limit pedagogical opportunity, and how distributed leadership in teaching and learning can emerge through genuine collaboration.

Launching the CEU CTL Global Teaching Fellowship Online Mentoring Programme

When we first began designing the CEU CTL Global Teaching Fellowship Online Mentoring Programme (Online Mentoring Programme for GTFs), our intention was to extend CEU’s commitment to reflective, research-informed teaching beyond its own classrooms. We developed the Online Mentoring Programme for GTFs to support Global Teaching Fellows -novice faculty who teach at partner universities across the world. Long before the pandemic made online interaction a necessity, we experimented with online mentoring as a means to connect across geographical, cultural, and institutional boundaries. Our goal was to create a personalised, developmental mentoring process that could accompany fellows as they navigated new and often very different academic environments: from Bangladesh to Brazil or Kyrgyzstan. Working entirely online, we learned that mentoring can transcend physical distance when grounded in trust, authenticity, and reflection. Establishing an online mentoring model in this way was both a bold institutional experiment and a response to the growing need for flexible, context-sensitive academic development. Nevertheless, the experience showed us that online mentoring, when intentionally designed, can cultivate agency, reflective teaching, and cross-cultural understanding – while also modelling how universities can build faculty communities of practice that are boundaryless and globally connected (Dorner, Misic, & Rymarenko, 2020).

Rather than imposing models of teaching from CEU, we invited fellows to adapt their practices to local contexts through dialogue and inquiry, which reflected SoTL principles. Fellows nevertheless completed the CEU Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Programme for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education, which became the natural entry point into the Global Teaching Fellowship, preparing candidates to think critically about teaching and learning before embarking on their international placements. In this way, mentoring did not begin once Fellows were abroad, it was integrated into a longer developmental trajectory that connected initial training, guided teaching practice, and reflective inquiry.

This initial preparation period, which we considered the first phase of the mentoring process, supported Fellows in developing course designs and teaching strategies tailored to their host institutions. This involved individual consultations—online or in person—with CTL mentors to adapt learning goals, assessment approaches, and classroom activities to new contexts. The second phase focused on ongoing mentoring and collaborative professional practice during the fellowship. Through monthly online meetings, we worked with Fellows to discuss teaching challenges, share classroom experiences, and co-develop strategies for active learning, assessment, and course redesign. These sessions often involved mentors from host institutions, forming a triadic relationship that encouraged mutual learning across institutional boundaries. The third phase emphasized reflection and documentation. We guided Fellows in capturing their teaching experiences and professional growth through structured reflections and teaching portfolios that included syllabi, student feedback, and analyses of specific teaching moments. Upon their return to CEU, Fellows shared their insights with future cohorts, completing a cycle of mentorship that continually renewed itself.

In designing and institutionalising this programme, we deliberately moved away from hierarchical models of academic supervision toward a coaching-oriented, collaborative approach. Rather than prescribing solutions, our role as mentors has been to create the structure, guidance, and psychological safety that enable Fellows to experiment, adapt, and grow as teachers. This leadership model – distributed, dialogic, and reflective – has allowed this Online Mentoring Programme to evolve into an international community of practice. It continues to demonstrate that innovation in mentoring is not only about technology or delivery mode but about fostering agency, trust, and cross-cultural understanding in the service of meaningful teaching and learning. In this way, mentoring functioned not only as academic support, but as a form of distributed SoTL leadership that cultivated agency across institutional and national boundaries.

Mentoring in the EDUflow faculty fellowship programme – Helga’s story

The idea of faculty as change agents has been central to my work at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Hungary. When the institutional context began to open more fully to grassroots initiatives in teaching and learning, together with staff from the Office of Academic Development and Talent Support, we saw an opportunity to build on existing momentum and design a programme that would not only support individual faculty but also strengthen the university’s organizational capacity. Drawing on my experiences from CEU and principles of organizational development, we wanted to create a structure that empowered faculty to act as change agents – brokers of ideas and practices (Kensington-Miller et al., 2025) – while also embedding SoTL more firmly across the institution.

This vision took shape in 2024 with the launch of EDUflow, a two-semester programme aimed at enhancing pedagogical expertise across all faculties. We invited applications from colleagues across the university, and the selected participants formed a cross-faculty cohort. From the outset, we imagined them as more than learners: they were potential leaders, positioned to informally carry forward and share repertoires of good teaching within their local contexts.

The programme itself combined three curricular elements. First, online, self-paced modules introduced foundational topics such as course design, interactive lecturing, project- and group-based learning, and digital content creation. Second, in-person workshops encouraged deeper reflection on themes that are often less visible yet equally important, such as academic identity, integrating student feedback, and resilience. Finally, a structured mentoring component brought these strands together by connecting pedagogical knowledge with disciplinary expertise and institutional learning. The programme culminated in three tangible outcomes: the creation of an innovative course design, a draft teaching portfolio, and a proposal for a pedagogical inquiry project; the latter could be presented at the university’s annual teaching and learning conference.

Of these elements, mentoring proved particularly transformative. By design, it created a community of practice that brought together senior mentors – experienced both as university teachers and as academic developers, many with expertise in digital learning – with participants eager to grow in their teaching. Rather than a top-down model of guidance, mentoring became a reciprocal space of co-learning. Mentors and participants formed alliances that stretched across faculties, strengthening the university’s capacity to enhance teaching and learning.

What had been emerging was a model of leadership that was horizontal, distributed, and embedded in practice. Participants not only refined their own teaching repertoires but also began sharing ideas within their faculties, thereby shaping a wider culture of pedagogical innovation. Currently, the second cohort is making its way through the programme, and in my role as lead mentor I have come to see EDUflow as far more than a structured initiative. It has grown into a mechanism for cultivating SoTL engagement at ELTE, strengthening institutional resilience, and nurturing a community in which leadership in teaching is shared and collectively enacted.

Higher Education Pedagogy Courses and Certificate Programme for Faculty – Anna’s story

As discussed above, courses or certificate programmes in teaching and learning in higher education offer more than just training. In the context of faculty, they create spaces where faculty can step back from the daily routines of research and teaching and begin to see their work through a new lens. Within these programmes, faculty engage with evidence-based strategies for teaching and learning, while also being encouraged to reflect critically on their own practices – often for the first time. In doing so, they begin to see how theory and research can inform what happens in their classrooms, gradually promoting a culture of continuous improvement (Pleschová & McAlpine, 2016).

In such structured and formal encounters, faculty develop a sound theoretical base as well as a solid methodological grounding in classroom-based research, which are prerequisites of meaningful SoTL inquiry. On the one hand, such programmes can provide an entry into the world of pedagogy, equipping faculty with the language, frameworks, and practical strategies for teaching and related research. On the other hand, they can spark deeper journeys of professional growth, leading some to create their own grassroots initiatives or contribute to building SoTL communities within their institutions. In this way, the programmes do more than improve individual teaching – contribute to making teaching itself more visible.

With this in mind, the first step in programme development at the Poznań University of Economics and Business (PUEB) was the pedagogical course, which I began coordinating in 2011. I redesigned its curriculum by drawing on Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon models, encouraging participants to prepare teaching portfolios and to learn from one another through peer discussions. This modest beginning grew into something larger. The success of the course paved the way for the DNA Programme – Academic Teacher Development, implemented in 2014/2015 and 2016/2017 through participatory budgeting. Workshops with national and international experts broadened the scope of teaching development far beyond what I had initially envisioned, and these collective efforts were later recognised with the Rector’s Prize. This programme has now been continuously offered since 2011 for early-career faculty with up to five years of professional experience (100 hours). Since 2022, it has also been available to faculty with more extensive teaching experience who have not previously completed certified training in teaching and learning in higher education. For all positions, both on the research-and-teaching track and the teaching-only track, documented pedagogical training is required. Thus, completion of the training has become an essential criterion for career advancement to the positions of assistant professor, associate professor, or full professor. [see endnote 1]

The formal requirement to complete pedagogical training was met with a mixed response. At first, many faculty saw it simply as an obligation, something they had to do. However, as they moved through the course, most began to recognise its real value – in strengthening their teaching skills and in giving them new ways to support student learning. Alongside the mandatory course, the Academic Teaching and Learning Centre also offered shorter, thematic workshops, repeated regularly so that faculty could continue building their skills step by step. Taken together, this created a comprehensive approach that not only supported continuous development but also encouraged faculty to see professional growth in teaching as both necessary and meaningful.

Faculty have come to recognise that designing and delivering courses is about far more than technical skills or tools. Through training, they began to see that higher education pedagogy is grounded in educational research and theory, which helps them better understand and articulate their own teaching practices. At PUEB, many faculty now actively engage in SoTL: they lead workshops and training sessions, and they contribute to the wider academic discourse on teaching and learning through publications. This growing involvement in SoTL does more than strengthen individual competencies; it is gradually reshaping the culture of teaching at the university.

I see my role here as both leader and facilitator. By redesigning the course, coordinating its growth, and advocating for its institutional importance, I helped to create structures in which faculty could develop as scholarly teachers – and build their own SoTL communities and act as change agents. My work as an academic developer was not only to provide training but also to shape institutional culture. While Polish universities remain at an early stage of adopting SoTL, I am convinced that its systematic development requires sustained commitment, adequate resources, and supportive policies. The journey that began as a small initiative has gradually evolved into a collective endeavour, with growing momentum and a community of dedicated colleagues.

Consultations and a developmental model of teaching observation

Sometimes extraordinary events, even those that are generally disruptive and unwelcome, can create unexpected opportunities for change. The pandemic, which abruptly moved all classes online, sparked a surge of interest in more individualised support for faculty. In response, the Professional Competency Development Unit introduced new opportunities for consultation – spaces to share ideas, discuss challenges, and explore both technical and methodological solutions to strengthen student engagement. Nowadays, in the Academic Teaching and Learning Centre there are six academic developers with whom faculty can speak about various teaching and learning issues they face, such as introducing a new teaching method, grading, teaching online, and similar.

Alongside these consultations, we offered a developmental model of teaching observation (Gosling, 2002). In Poland, classroom observations are most often evaluative, conducted by a supervisor. By contrast, the developmental model is designed to identify strengths and challenges in teaching practices and to create a tailored plan for growth. These observations are voluntary, confidential, and non-directive, conducted by academic developers using a coaching approach. Through questions and guided reflection, faculty are encouraged to think more deeply about their teaching practices and skills, a process that promotes both self-awareness and growth.

When I took on the task of institutionalising a new approach to class observations, my aim was to break with the long-standing habit of using them as corrective measures. Instead, I introduced a coaching-based model that emphasized dialogue, reflection, and mutual learning. This shift – initially developed during the pandemic and sustained afterwards -invited faculty to see observations not as evaluations but as opportunities for professional growth. My role became one of creating the structure, guidance, and space for colleagues to experiment, reflect, and refine their teaching. By fostering curiosity rather than correction, this approach has helped build confidence, encouraged self-awareness, and contributed to a broader cultural shift in which class observation serves as a shared, developmental practice rather than a judgmental one.

Centres for Teaching and Learning as Catalysts for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) – Our shared story

When we look at how academic development has evolved globally, it’s clear that in many universities, supporting and inquiring into teaching has long been institutionalized. Centres for teaching enhancement – under names like Center for Teaching Excellence, Center for Teaching and Learning, or Center for Academic Development—have been part of the academic landscape for decades. In places such as the UK, Ireland, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and across Scandinavia and Western Europe, these centres provide systematic, university-wide support for improving teaching and learning. Their role goes beyond workshops or consultations; they help build a shared culture where teaching is valued, studied, and continuously developed. For those of us working in Central and Eastern Europe, where such traditions are newer, these models offered both inspiration and a reminder that strong institutional support for teaching doesn’t just improve classroom practice – it shapes how a university understands learning itself.

The establishment of the Academic Teaching and Learning Centre at the Poznań University of Economics and Business (PUEB) was a long journey, even though the professionalisation of university teaching competencies can be traced back as far as the 1970s. Efforts to establish a Center for Academic Pedagogy began in 2015 but initially failed to gain traction. However, in 2020, through the combined efforts of many individuals and the university’s accreditation goals, the Professional Competency Development Team was established. The process began with the introduction of a pedagogical training course and was further strengthened when funding from the European Union became available for a range of programmes aimed at enhancing teaching competencies, including the project Enhancing the Teaching Competencies of University Teachers at the Poznań University of Economics and Business (2017–2019). This project enabled 220 academic staff to strengthen their pedagogical knowledge and teaching skills through a combination of local and international trainings. Although these programmes substantially expanded professional development opportunities, they remained fragmented. Still, building on this, the Professional Competency Development Team was established in 2020 through the joint efforts of numerous stakeholders and in line with the University’s accreditation objectives. Over the years, through external funding from various grants and projects, we have continued to expand our training offerings, support participation in national conferences, and provide developmental classroom observations and methodological consultations. After five years of further grassroots initiatives, in 2025 this team was transformed into the Academic Teaching and Learning Centre. The newly created Centre consists of the E-Learning Team, the Teaching Competency Development Team (composed of academic developers), and the Administrative Team. As a new organisational unit of the University, the Centre has been established to support the enhancement of teaching and learning processes, the professionalisation and continuous development of teaching competencies among academic staff, as well as the promotion and facilitation of the implementation of innovations in teaching.

Similarly, over time, we have watched the CEU Center for Teaching and Learning (CEU CTL) grow from a modest initiative into a sustained force for pedagogical innovation – driven by both vision and lived practice. Our journey began with the Teaching Certificate Programme for doctoral students, which provided a structured entry point into reflective teaching through foundations in pedagogy, co-teaching, peer observation, and the creation of online teaching portfolios. As we deepened that work, we introduced the Online Mentoring Programme for the CEU Global Teaching Fellows, enabling doctoral candidates and early career faculty to teach in global partner institutions while receiving sustained, personalised support from us, mentors in teaching and learning. This model of support predated the pandemic and anticipated a more distributed, digitally mediated model of academic development.

Alongside these doctoral student-focused efforts, we established supports for faculty across CEU. We instituted teaching observation and feedback protocols that emphasized coaching and reflection instead of evaluation, creating a culture in which improvement is collective and dialogic. We also launched Teaching Development Grants, where faculty, often together with doctoral students and teaching assistants, could pilot inquiry-based teaching projects, share results, and begin to frame their work in SoTL terms. To cultivate community and cross-pollination, we organised events such as Wine, Cheese, and Conversation, inviting external academic developers and SoTL scholars to engage with our faculty in informal dialogue. The launch of the institutional CEU Teaching Excellence Award and the European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities further elevated visibility for teaching excellence within and beyond CEU.

Importantly, we did not restrict our work to local initiatives. We committed ourselves to researching our own practices and engaging actively in the international community of scholars in academic development, teaching and learning, and SoTL. In doing so, the CEU CTL based in Budapest did not simply support pedagogical work – it positioned itself as a hub of innovation, distributed leadership, and ongoing inquiry into what meaningful teaching and academic citizenship can look like across borders.

Creating multidisciplinary alliances: institutional and national conferences and organizations – Our shared story

In our experience, once courses and programmes in teaching and learning begin to spread the principles of scholarly teaching, the next step is to build alliances that cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Conferences and professional networks are crucial here. They allow faculty to connect, showcase innovations, and engage in evidence-informed conversations about teaching that often extend beyond local dynamics. Such encounters validate teaching-focused scholarship, foster communities of practice, and help shape a culture in which teaching is valued alongside research (Webb & Tierney, 2019).

In Poland, we have seen how a growing network of colleagues committed to teaching has been strengthened by conferences such as Ars Docendi (Jagiellonian University), Ideatorium (Gdańsk University of Technology), and VIVA (University of Gdańsk). Events focused on digital learning further attract academic teachers eager to innovate. Many participants become ambassadors of scholarly teaching in their institutions, and some take on roles as academic developers, advancing SoTL nationally. Local initiatives, such as Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Days and the new eduSPACE event in Poznań (first edition in 2025), reinforce this trend and demonstrate how recognition, sharing, and collaboration can build momentum.

In Hungary, we too have witnessed the growth of institutional and inter-institutional platforms. At ELTE, the annual internal Teaching and Learning Conference, organized since 2022, provides space for faculty to present evidence-informed innovations and engage with peers. The Higher Education Pedagogy Conference at ELTE’s Faculty of Education and Psychology combines a peer-reviewed academic track with professional development workshops, and serves as a national platform for interested colleagues.  Most recently, the establishment of the Higher Education Pedagogy Subcommittee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2023 and the Hungarian Academic Developers’ Forum in 2024 marked a milestone, signalling national recognition of scholarly teaching.

Across both contexts, we see how such initiatives gradually also consolidate SoTL communities – communities that not only support academic development but also create the conditions for organisational learning, institutional resilience, and distributed leadership in teaching and learning.

Conclusion: Leading SoTL from the Margins

Looking back at our different journeys, we recognise that supporting SoTL in environments where teaching is undervalued requires persistence, creativity, and a belief that meaningful change often begins in small, local acts of leadership. In contexts where research prestige dominates and formal recognition for teaching is scarce, SoTL becomes a quiet but powerful form of agency. We learned that the most effective way to foster SoTL is not through mandates or top-down reform, but through building trust, relationships, and structures that allow colleagues to engage with teaching as inquiry.

Developing pedagogical training, teaching development programmes that introduce SoTL early, creating mentoring systems that bridge institutions and cultures, offering grants that encourage collaborative experimentation, and establishing spaces—formal or informal—for conversation and reflection all help to create conditions where teaching begins to matter. Through such efforts, we can show that SoTL is not separate from research but an extension of scholarly curiosity into our own classrooms. Academic developers play a crucial role here: by modelling reflective practice, facilitating peer exchange, and creating psychologically safe spaces for experimentation, we make it possible for others to see teaching as both intellectually rigorous and institutionally significant.

Our experiences across Hungary and Poland have shown that even in research-intensive or policy-constrained environments, SoTL can thrive when we frame it as a collective process of learning and leadership. Supporting SoTL means cultivating networks, celebrating small wins, and connecting local practice with global conversations. Above all, it means keeping the focus on learning – our students’ and our own – and demonstrating, through our actions, that good teaching is not a distraction from scholarship but one of its most vital expressions.

What emerges from these experiences is that leadership in teaching and learning takes many forms, always shaped by context and opportunity. It can be distributed and collectively enacted; it can be simultaneously facilitative, embedded, and transformative. Rather than directing or prescribing, it creates structures, guidance, and space for faculty to experiment, reflect, and adjust their teaching approaches. Other times it takes shape in advocating for institutional support, or helping faculty develop as scholarly teachers, to build their own SoTL communities, and act as change agents. Whether horizontal, distributed, or embedded in practice, effective SoTL leadership responds to opportunities, encourages collaboration, and nurtures a culture of shared responsibility. As a result, across contexts, SoTL increases the visibility of teaching. Still, lasting change requires strong institutional leadership and genuine buy-in to see the shift in how teaching is more valued – on its journey to be equally valued as research.

Endnotes

[1] Ordinance No. 87/2022 of the Rector of the Poznań University of Economics and Business, dated December 19, 2022, on the launch of the PUEB Pedagogical Course, 2022