Honorary title (academic)

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Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in many of the universities and colleges of the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, New Zealand, Japan, Denmark, and Canada.

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Examples of such titles are Honorary Professor, [1] Honorary Fellow, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Honorary Reader, Honorary Lecturer (normally applies to non-teaching staff, who give occasional lectures), [2] Visiting Fellow (normally applies to students carrying out further studies and research programmes), [3] Industrial Fellow. [4]

Honorary Professor

Dr. Irwin Jacobs received an Honorary Distinguished Chair Professorship from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan in 2013 Irwin Jacobs.jpg
Dr. Irwin Jacobs received an Honorary Distinguished Chair Professorship from National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan in 2013
Sir John Meurig Thomas received an Honorary Distinguished Professorship from Osaka Prefecture University, Japan in 2006 Sir-john-meurig-thomas rare-book-room.jpg
Sir John Meurig Thomas received an Honorary Distinguished Professorship from Osaka Prefecture University, Japan in 2006

In the UK, this is the highest title to be awarded to individuals whom the university wish to appoint, honor, and to work with. These individuals are not university staff nor employees. An external person is usually recommended by an internal university academic staff, and recommended for approval by the head of department, for which the documents are then forwarded to faculty dean, vice president and president (or deputy vice chancellor) for approval.

Examples of UK universities who award honorary professorships are University of Essex, University of Manchester, [6] Brunel University, [7] Middlesex University, University of Bristol, [8] Leicester University, [9] University of Exeter, [10] etc. Procedures for evaluation and approval are overseen by university personnel or registrar office. Appointment is made formally by an appointment letter, for a fixed period of time (usually three years) and renewal is possible. Honorary professors are expected to contribute to the department of the university through giving seminars and joint research with university staffs. Requirements vary from university to university but contributions are expected from the appointee.

In Taiwan, more titles are used to recognize different levels of individuals. They are (in descending order of hierarchy):

In China, top universities like Fudan University, Tsinghua University and Peking University have awarded Honorary Professorships. Recent recipients include Prof. Peter Bruce from Oxford, [11] Prof. Reinhart Poprawe from Aachen Germany [12] and Professor Thomas Sargent, Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics in 2011. [13]

In Australia, Australian Catholic University (ACU), [14] University of Queensland, [15] RMIT, [16] University of Western Australia, [17] University of Wollongong, [18] University of Canberra [19] and Macquarie University [20] all allow the appointment of honorary professors.

In New Zealand, University of Otago, [21] University of Waikato, and University of Auckland [22] also have provisions for the appointment of honorary professors. Recently, Sir Richard Taylor was appointed honorary professor at Massey University. [23] Prof. Mike Murphy of the Mitochondrial Biology Unit at University of Cambridge was appointed to honorary professor at University of Otago in 2016. [24]

In Denmark, the honorary professor title is conferred in recognition of a person's special contribution to the subject area associated with faculty's activities. Honorary professors are expected to:

Although honorary professors are not paid a salary, the following expenses are usually compensated:

Aarhus University is an example university in Denmark that confers honorary professorship. [25]

Honorary Reader, Senior Lecturer, Lecturer

Persons of lower prestige and academic achievements are appointed at ranks other than professor. Honorary readers are viewed higher than honorary senior lecturer and honorary lecturer. A person can be promoted to the next higher honorary rank on recommendation by the internal university staff and department. Once approved at the university level, the title is then changed.

Honorary Fellow

In certain UK universities, the title of Honorary Fellow is awarded to people from industry, whom the university wish to recognize and collaborate with. For example, the London School of Economics, Imperial College London, [26] University College London and Queen Mary University of London all have provisions for the award of honorary fellow. The University of Hong Kong also awards Honorary Fellow and a recent award was made to Harry Shum from Microsoft Corporation. [27] Various professional bodies, such as the Royal Institute of British Architects and IET UK also have honorary fellowships. [28]

Visiting appointments

This is often confused with honorary academic titles. A visiting professor or reader or senior lecturer or lecturer is someone who has taken time off their primary institution of employment to visit and collaborate with staff from another university. Hence, the visiting appointment is usually for a short period of time, ranging from 3 months up to 1 year. This is not the same as an honorary appointment held in UK universities.

However, in Germany, visiting lecturers and private lecturers can be conferred the titles of "Honorarprofessor" or "Außerplanmäßiger Professor" respectively after several semesters of successful teaching.

Benefits

In addition to the honor and recognition, an honorary title sometimes permits non-employees to enjoy the privileges available to regular staff members, such as access to facilities and libraries, temporary stay in university housing, entitlement to a university business card, an email account, and to receive a parking permit.

Related Research Articles

Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct research.

A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher educational institutions, a fellow can be a member of a highly ranked group of teachers at a particular college or university or a member of the governing body in some universities; it can also be a specially selected postgraduate student who has been appointed to a post granting a stipend, research facilities and other privileges for a fixed period in order to undertake some advanced study or research, often in return for teaching services. In the context of research and development-intensive large companies or corporations, the title "fellow" is sometimes given to a small number of senior scientists and engineers. In the context of medical education in North America, a fellow is a physician who is undergoing a supervised, sub-specialty medical training (fellowship) after having completed a specialty training program (residency).

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The title of reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth of Nations, for example India, Australia and New Zealand, denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship.

A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a principal investigator.

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Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born physicist and Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. Until the summer of 2022 he also held a joint appointment at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore. He is known for his research on the theory of quantum entanglement and quantum information theory. He has published numerous research papers, which are regularly cited, in quantum mechanics and quantum information, and was awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2007. He has held a lectureship and readership at Imperial College, a professorship at Leeds and visiting professorships in Vienna, Singapore (NUS) and at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. He is the author of several books, including Decoding Reality.

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Academic ranks in Hungary are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia.

Academic ranks in Norway are the system of merit-based ranks used by academic employees in academia. Similar to the British rank system, the Norwegian rank system is broadly divided into three pathways, a combined research and teaching career pathway, a research career pathway and a teaching career pathway.

An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is generally agreed to mean a bona-fide part-time faculty member in an adjunct position at an institution of higher education.

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References

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  12. "Reinhart Poprawe Named Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University".
  13. "Professor Thomas Sargent awarded Honorary Professor of Peking University, 2018".
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  16. "Honorary and Visiting Academic Appointments Policy, RMIT University".
  17. "University Policy on: Honorary Appointments, UWA". 16 June 2022.
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  19. "Honorary Appointments, University of Canberra". 2014-09-25.
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  24. "News".
  25. [Characterizing Domestic Consumption Behavior Based on Survey and Smart Meter Data: a Data Mining Approach "Conferment of the title of honorary professor / associate professor, Aarhus University, Denmark"].{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  26. "Academic appointments and honorary associations, Imperial College London".
  27. "Dr. Harry Shum - 2017 Honorary University Fellow".
  28. "RIBA announces 12 Honorary Fellowships". architecture.com. 6 October 2009. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.