Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Faculty,
A core responsibility of my role as dean is stewardship of career development and academic promotion for our nearly 13,000 faculty members. Every day I marvel at your dedication and academic achievement, which collectively elevate the Harvard Faculty of Medicine to global prominence.
For those of you who are early- and mid-career members of the HMS and HSDM faculty, your hard-won achievements and unparalleled promise are what brought you to this community in the first place. It is our collective responsibility, now that you’re here, to nurture your development so that you can become the national and international standard-bearers of scientific, clinical, and educational innovation.
It is in that spirit that we’ve updated our guidance on the faculty promotion process. In the course of our routine reviews of HMS affiliate academic departments, I often receive feedback that Harvard’s criteria and standards for promotion lack clarity. This is an understandable and heartfelt concern deserving of our thoughtful attention. Although any consequential career assessment process can elicit anxiety and uncertainty, I am sincerely committed to making the promotion criteria as clear — and the process as straightforward — as possible.
As part of this commitment, I am writing today to share our updated Promotion Profiles for the Faculty of Medicine, developed by the HMS Office for Faculty Affairs (OFA). Please see the message below from HMS Dean for Faculty Affairs, Grace Huang, for more background and details, including links to the relevant sections of the Faculty Handbook.
Promotion across Harvard University has always centered on original, peer-reviewed scholarship — the creation of new knowledge through research — and that focus on written scholarship will continue to be the core element of ladder faculty promotions at Harvard. That being said, we appreciate that many talented HMS and HSDM faculty make their most significant contributions in domains that fall outside of the scholarship of discovery. In order to recognize this kind of excellence and extraordinary accomplishment, we have recently introduced a new professorial title, akin to a Clinician-Scholar or Clinician-Educator professorship at peer institutions. This Professor of Clinical X title enables outstanding individuals who have attained the associate professor rank in the Faculty of Medicine, and who have continued to distinguish themselves through major contributions to clinical medicine, to become Professors within their clinical specialty. While a strong foundation of scholarship is still a prerequisite, this appointment recognizes faculty for high-impact contributions that build upon their scholarly work and clinical expertise to advance the practice of medicine.
I am also excited to share that the University has approved the extension of eligibility for this professorial appointment to externally recruited department chairs and division chiefs. We anticipate a future expansion of the use of clinical titles in appreciation of the fact that many faculty choose to devote their energies to clinical excellence, teaching, and patient care as the primary focus of their careers in academic medicine.
It is worth stating unambiguously that HMS, HSDM, and the affiliated hospitals and research institutes are jointly responsible for ensuring that our faculty receive mentorship and resources — including protected time — so that faculty have every opportunity to meet and even surpass the high standards of our community. For individuals who seek promotion along the current academic ladder, protected time for research, scholarship, and teaching remains essential, and its importance cannot be overstated. I am working alongside hospital leadership to establish concrete practices that provide the necessary supports to facilitate outstanding scholarly achievement for those faculty seeking to advance their careers in academic medicine.
My sincere thanks to the HMS Office for Faculty Affairs for their extraordinary work putting together the updated Promotion Profiles. Their efforts significantly strengthen our ability to uphold Harvard’s high academic standards, support our faculty in meeting them, and apply our benchmarks of success while adapting to the evolving demands of the health care ecosystem. I will look forward to receiving your thoughts on these updates in the months to come.
Sincerely,
George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University
Dear HMS/HSDM Faculty,
I am pleased to share that the Office for Faculty Affairs has updated the Promotion Profile Library. These documents provide the most current promotion metrics across pathways and ranks, along with guidance on significant supporting activities.
Promotion standards across Harvard University center on a sustained record of original scholarship resulting in impact and reputation at the local, regional, and national or international levels. These materials, last updated in 2016, concretely highlight the evidence for these accomplishments, including innovations that advance the field, dissemination and uptake beyond the walls of our institutions, and measurable impact.
We also clarify distinctions among our various promotion pathways, including Professor of Clinical X, which was developed to recognize the contributions and impact of faculty that transcend original, peer-reviewed scholarship. We hope these metrics help faculty better identify which profiles align best with their career paths.
The biomedical landscape continues to evolve in ways that impact our evaluation of academic success. Bibliometrics are more commonly referenced as indicators of impact, and use of field-normalized metrics such as the relative citation ratio established by the NIH have enhanced the objectivity and fairness of citation metrics at the professorial level. At the same time, virtual presentations have expanded opportunities for national and global visibility. Technological advances — including computational methods and artificial intelligence — have greatly boosted the generation of scholarship.
We intend these resources to better help faculty understand expectations, assess readiness, and strategically plan for advancement. We encourage faculty and mentors to use this library as a reference when preparing for promotion.
Please visit our website and reach out with any questions.
Sincerely,
Grace C. Huang
Dean for Faculty Affairs
Harvard Medical School