An internationally recognised researcher’s journey to Senior Fellowship

It wasn’t really until I started my Senior Fellowship application that I fully appreciated my achievement and the impact that I have made in teaching and learning as a leader. I am very thankful to my colleagues at Munster Technological University (MTU), who encouraged me to write openly about my leadership role in teaching and learning. Their encouragement helped me get over any doubts I held in applying, particularly as I did not do anything extraordinary in teaching and learning; but my thanks go to my group members at MTU who motivated me to think and write about my leadership role and how I influenced others in teaching and learning. These few words of appreciation and motivation from colleagues boosted my confidence and now I am proud to share that I have achieved the status of Senior Fellowship from Advance HE.

My foremost suggestion to those who want to apply for Senior Fellowship is to work in a group, discuss together, and share your career to date with your colleagues. Sometimes, you will uncover achievements in your career that you underestimate, but which your colleagues will value and will help you illustrate your impact on their teaching and learning – and, you can do the same for them in their Fellowship application.

One of the challenges that I faced was how to relate my research with teaching and learning. I found the Dimensions of the Framework guidance really useful to help to identify examples from my practice such as from my supervisory role, my research, and academic leadership engagement that I could use in my application. The guide to the Dimensions is really important and I suggest that anyone applying for Senior Fellowship to read it thoroughly.

In 2019, I was invited by the Series Editor in Textbooks in Telecommunications Engineering, Springer to write a textbook on an emerging topic of Telecommunications. I selected the topic of Blockchain (distributed ledger technology) and published a textbook. This book is an outcome of the module “Distributed Ledger Technology” that I have been teaching and serves as a good example of innovative practices in teaching and learning in MTU’s context. My textbook has been used in other universities and it influenced many other academic colleagues’ teaching.

Higher education cannot be seen in isolation: its purpose is to educate and develop the mind and potential of future incoming students (cohorts) who will join the HE institutions. I use my Education and Public (EPE) activities as an effective tool to show how HE can shape our society, policies, and for the betterment of society.

I am very proud that I am the recipient of the Education and Public Engagement (EPE) 2022 award from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Government of Ireland. I received the award for engaging with the general public , explaining the work and achievements in the higher education sector. Through EPE activities, I influence other teachers and colleagues and disseminate knowledge to other academics as well. I delivered workshops and seminars to teach my fellow colleagues about effective EPE. They learn and adopt these strategies and inculcate EPE into their teaching and learning. Through my EPE activities and teaching philosophy, I make connections with potential students to understand the relevance of the discipline; and this also helps motivate them. So it’s all about my teaching philosophy i.e. increasing the knowledge base of higher education through EPE, and Senior Fellowship which has formally recognises my leadership role and activity in Teaching and Learning.

Dr. Mubashir Husain Rehmani is a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science at Munster Technological University, Ireland. He is an internationally recognized Computer Scientist and Researcher, who has been nominated three times in the world’s top 1% ranked highly cited researchers.