People Categories

The departmental membership categories are:

  • Academic Faculty — direct employment relationship with the department and involved in teaching and/or research run by the department (e.g.Stat Profs, Readers, APs, CUFs, DLs, RSIV, G9 + G10 Researchers, Career Development Fellows) + ex officio Director of UG Studies, and Faculty Teaching Advisor.
  • Affiliate Faculty — no (or casual/very minimal) direct contractual relationship with the department but still very closely involved in teaching and/or research directly run by the department AND has an employment contract elsewhere in the university. Must be proposed/accepted/adopted by a research group. Note the department determines whether they are affiliate faculty or researcher rather than the individual explicitly applying for one or the other.
  • Research Fellow — contractual relationship with the department (either direct employment or contractual relationship between funder and department) and engaged in independent research.
  • PDRA — direct employment relationship with the department and engaged on a specific research project in the department.
  • Affiliate Researcher — no (or casual/very minimal) direct contractual relationship with the department but based in the university and wishing to be involved in departmental activities (e.g. JRFs, college lecturers, non-employed (by Oxford) longer term (i.e. more than 1 year) visiting research fellows such as Newton International Fellows and Swiss NSF fellows). Must be proposed/accepted/adopted by a research group. Note the department determines whether they are affiliate faculty or researcher rather than the individual explicitly applying for one or the other.
  • Emeritus & Retired Staff — Accepted under the emeritus/retired staff process (typically previously been Academic Faculty and now retired from the department but in exceptional cases can be emeritus/retired academics who did not hold a status in this department at retirement).
  • Professional Services / Admin & Support — direct employment relationship with the department in an admin/support role.
  • Postgrad (Doctorate) - DPhil students admitted through Academic Admin managed processes
  • Postgrad (Masters) - Masters students admitted through Academic Admin managed processes
  • Visitorships (Visiting Professorship, Visiting Research Fellowship or Visiting Lectureship) — invited under a
    formal university or department scheme (usually for 2-3 years), typically visiting from another academic institution (or in some cases a company), and coming to the department for particular days/periods within the overall period of the Visitorship, but not being entirely based in Oxford with no other home institution/employer (in which case they would instead be affiliates which provides more involvement with everyday departmental life for those based solely in the university)
  • Academic Visitor:
    • Long Term Visitor — invited through normal departmental visitor programme, including approval by (or on behalf of) Executive Committee, for a visit of 3-12 months (includes postdocs and research fellows who hold funds abroad and spend 3+ months here although if the department is to be their only or primary base then they should be appropriate liaison and checks with the researcher procedures too).
    • Short Term Visitor — invited through normal departmental visitor programme for a visit of less than 3 months.
    • Non-employed (by Oxford) longer term (i.e. more than 1 year) visiting research fellows such as Newton International Fellows and Swiss NSF fellows - such people remain formally visitors to the university, but we group them in at a departmental level with the affiliate researchers as noted in the relevant section above
  • Student Visitor — if coming for more than 3 months then directed down the recognised student process and
    hence through academic admin, if coming for less than 3 months directed down the short study visit route.

Note the status categories defined above are about membership of the department. In addition to those categories we also have no-status categories:

  • Teaching Staff — e.g. people in Stats, Comp Sci, Philosophy, colleges etc whose involvement with the department is purely teaching related due to joint courses.
  • External/Collaborator — people who are not members but have been granted some basic level of (IT) access and/or facilities, e.g. ongoing collaborators whose collaboration requires access to systems/services the department provides, people who ask for a short transitional period before starting elsewhere, regular external guest lecturers, people who do not need a status category that suggests more importance yet do need some level of access.

Note in general people are only in one category but there are corner cases/exceptions who are in multiple categories.

Changes of status typically occur for several reasons:

  • postgrad becomes a PDRA
  • PDRA becomes a Research Fellow
  • Research Fellow or PDRA becomes Academic Faculty
  • Affiliated individual changes job and becomes a formal employee of the department (e.g. Academic moves from Stats or Comp Sci to Maths)
  • Academic Faculty retire and hence can become Emeritus & Retired Staff
  • PDRA, Research Fellow or Academic Faculty leave formal employment with the department but retain a connection and hence become either Affiliate Researcher, Affiliated Faculty, Teaching Staff or External depending on the situation

In all these staff status change cases there is an underlying personnel process.

 

Please contact us with feedback and comments about this page. Last updated on 12 Oct 2023 11:55.