Promotion Panel Membership

  • For each annual ACP 6-9 exercise, Faculty Boards will review and nominate the membership of their Promotion Panel and seek approval from the relevant Council of the School. The Panel Chair will be nominated from among those members. 
  • The membership of the Promotion Panels should comprise a maximum of five members, who will be chosen to cover the range of disciplines covered by the panel.
  • An additional member from the University of Cambridge Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) may be invited to join the Promotion Panel, where deemed relevant by a school.
  • The Promotion Panel may also decide that, in the interest of fairness, additional senior academic(s) with appropriate specialised knowledge are invited as consultant(s) to attend the meeting of the committee for the consideration of multidisciplinary applications. 
  • Panels are required to include at least one representative with specific expertise in teaching focused academic practice.
  • Panel members must be academic and research staff at Grade 10 or above. 
  • Members of the Promotion Panels will normally serve for a three-year term and no member may serve for more than two consecutive terms of three years (i.e. members may serve on a panel for a maximum of six years). 
  • The full membership of the panels will be published on the ACP 6-9 webpages.
  • The membership of each panel should have as fair a representation across gender and ethnicity as reasonably possible. The representation across panels will be monitored.
  • All members of Promotion Panels are expected to undertake relevant training in equality and diversity matters as specified by the Human Resources Division on behalf of the General Board, namely the Equality and Diversity Essentials and the Understanding Unconscious/Implicit Bias online training modules. 
  • All members of Promotion Panels are expected to undertake training on Freedom of Speech, including reading the Freedom of Speech guidance, resources and training information on the Governance and Compliance Division website, reviewing the “Introducing free speech” factsheet, and watching the video and reviewing the guidance on the Office for Students website.
  • All members of Promotion Panels are responsible for ensuring that the assessment of applications is conducted fairly and transparently and complies with the scheme’s Key Principles.  Any member can challenge the process at any time if they consider that this is not the case by raising this with Chair of the relevant panel.
  • Meetings should be arranged so that, if possible, all members can attend. The quorum for all panels is a minimum of three members. Decisions should be made with the concurrence of the majority of members attending the meeting.
  • Meetings may be held in person or virtually.
  • Depending on the number of applications, panels may wish to consider scheduling their meetings to allow for a day’s break to be taken between the discussion of applications made under the different pathways.
  • All members should be aware that:
    • a systematic approach in forming a view of an application is desirable;
    • the process of evaluation is a collective activity with all decisions made collectively;
    • If a member is unable to be present at the meeting, they may provide a written statement of their assessment of the applications. However, as written views cannot be challenged by other members, they should be accorded less weight than those openly discussed in the meeting;
    • If all members agree immediately on the same overall assessment, this can be accepted without further discussion, and the panel can proceed to agree feedback. If there are differences in individual members’ evaluations, this should be discussed and a consensus reached.
  • Members who are on sabbatical leave must seek permission to attend meetings held during their period of leave through the Lead HR Business Partner.