Our GOLD Scheme and the Categories of Fellowship

Associate Fellow

Associate Fellowship is typically for those who may be new to a role in teaching and/or support for learning or may have a limited teaching portfolio; for example, some sessional/ part time staff or early career researchers with some teaching responsibilities. You may be new or experienced with specific roles in supporting HE learning such as technicians, librarians, professional staff, learning technologists, careers advisors, etc. It is not role dependent; you will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence of appropriate teaching and or/support for learning practice to make a successful application.

For an Associate Fellow application, you are only expected to evidence some dimensions of the PSF 20213.

To fully reflect on your practice and demonstrate some of the dimensions, you are expected to have at least one full calendar years worth of experience.

Use Advance HE's Fellowship Category Tool here to help identify if this is the right category for you

Read our GOLD D1 Associate Fellow Mentee Handbook here for more information on requirements

Fellow

Fellowship is the appropriate category of fellowship to professionally recognise individuals from a wide variety of different contexts whose practice with learners has ‘breadth and depth’, enabling them to evidence all PSF 2023 Dimensions. This might be staff with substantive teaching responsibilities or professional staff with responsibilities to support HE learning across all Dimensions. It is not role dependent; you will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence of appropriate teaching and or/support for learning practice at the ‘depth and breadth’ required to make a successful application.

To fully reflect on your practice and demonstrate all dimensions, you are expected to use evidence from a period of one to three calendar years.

Use Advance HE's Fellowship Category Tool here to help identify if this is the right category for you

Read our GOLD D2 Fellow Mentee Handbook here for more information on requirements

Senior Fellow

Senior Fellowship is for those who lead and/or influence academic practice and higher education learning in a many different settings. Working with and through ‘others’ (e.g. colleagues, peers, mentees, etc.), you operate to support, guide and initiate change or lead / influence enhancement of practice in a wide range of global contexts. Your contribution is effective, benefitting students and their learning experiences in a variety of ways.

Senior Fellowship is not role dependent and there are many different contexts in which you might be leading and/or influencing the practice of others. You will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence to meet the requirements of Descriptor 3.

In order to evidence the ‘sustained’ and ‘effective’ nature of your work you need to explain the rationale and process of your work and evidence the impact resulting from it over a period of three to five calendar years.

Our GOLD team facilitates a Senior Fellowship Information Session, that provides an overview of the expectations for Senior Fellow applications and the type of evidence and experience needed to be successful. We strongly advise anyone interested in applying for Senior Fellowship to attend this. Dates and bookings for our GOLD Senior Fellowship Information Session can be found via Horizon Learning here.

Use Advance HE's Fellowship Category Tool here to help identify if this is the right category for you

Read our GOLD D3 Senior Fellow Mentee Handbook here for more information on requirements

Principal Fellow

Principal Fellowship is not role dependent. Within your context, you will need to explore whether you have the extensive evidence of impact on high quality learning, at a strategic level, that is the basis for a successful application. For Principal Fellowship you need to be able to:

• demonstrate a sustained record of effectiveness in strategic leadership of high quality learning; and
• show that your leadership has had extensive impact.

Principal Fellows are a diverse community representing the full range of strategic leadership in higher education. For example, you may work in academic departments, professional or service departments, on senior or executive leadership teams, for a professional body, as independent consultants, or in other roles with impact on learning and teaching in Higher Education.

In order to evidence the ‘sustained’ and ‘effective’ nature of your work you need to explain the rationale and process of your work and evidence the impact resulting from it over a period of five to seven calendar years.

Principle Fellowship (PFHEA - D4) is not awarded by our GOLD scheme. Applications for this need to be made directly to Advance HE. Please contact our team for further information on how we can support you with your application.

Our GOLD team facilitates a Principal Fellowship Information Session, that provides an overview of the expectations for Principal Fellow applications and the type of evidence and experience needed to be successful. You will also get an opportunity to hear from those who have been successfully awarded Principal Fellowship too. We strongly advise anyone interested in applying for Principal Fellowship to attend this. Dates and bookings for our GOLD Principal Fellowship Information Session can be found via Horizon Learning here.