This is a resource to help people interpret two Professional Values in PSF 2023. These two areas are presented together, as in my experience there is similarity in how they should be handled. The question of V4 (how you engage with wider context) and V5 (how you collaborate) are similar in shape. Let’s look at each in turn before I offer a few steps for you to consider your own situation.

V4: Respond to the wider context

V4 is “respond to the wider context”. Essentially, if I put my university as a picture and draw arrows going into it and out of it, all the different touch points, the influences, and all the different touch points that we influence – that’s the wider context.

Factors might include:

• Professional bodies
• Partner organisations
• Employers with whom we work
• Placement contexts in a variety of different environments
• Funders
• Government and government policy
• The press around higher education
• Charities with whom we work

The important thing here is to maybe just think about what the wider context looks like for you.  

Once that’s established, think about how you work with that. How do you keep up to date with what’s going on in those spaces? And how do you respond?

For Associate Fellow and Fellow, it might be a case of simply saying how you do respond to things like professional body changes, or how do you understand changes in business that you might reflect in your content.  Or, for example, understanding the student cost of living crisis might involve regular popular news sites, while keeping up with changes in policy that impact us might include reading some regular specialist press articles.

It’s then important to qualify that and say what you did as a result of the connection. So, as a result of some articles on cost of living, you then changed your practice being more empathetic or by building in catch up materials as a default – recognisng the pressures on students; or, as a result of engaging and understanding the importance of a professional body’s new skills recommendation, you embed that into your curriculum. Those are the sorts of things you might include.

For a Senior Fellow, it’s more important to say how you’re using those contextual touch points to inform your leadership. So, for example, by staying on top of changes in higher education politics and policy, you’re potentially better able to advise others about, for example, the direction of AI, or ensuring that student voice considerations are responsive to current topics.

That’s V4.

V5: Collaborating to enhance practice

For V5, which is “collaborating to enhance practice”, again think about who you collaborate with. What does your map look like? Who are you working with, and who are you not working with?

First of all, notice the people that you’re working with: your colleagues immediately in your team, and perhaps central enhancement teams. Professional services teams and technical teams as well as academics may all be on your map. Add any partners, communities of practice and networks. Also, you might engage with professional bodies, external examiners and your local community. Maybe just map and you might actually be surprised-and again, a bit like V4 as well, physically create that map (colouring pens may be good for this!).

Don’t just describe what you’re doing. How are you engaging, and who are you engaging with, and why, and what changed as a result? Particularly for Senior Fellowship, show that you’ve got an actual strategy to engage. So, for example, with external communities of practice, that might be a very deliberate part of your updating your leadership skills, and it might be a way that you’re exerting influence. You may talk about themes of compassion ad care in how you treat others, and you may reflect on how you show up and embrace other values in the PSF – such as inclusion, participation and evidence based practice. These can be applied to interactions with colleagues as well as students.  Whereas in a Fellowship category, it might be more that you are taking ideas for practice.

Quite a powerful step to add is noticing who are you not engaging with e.g. on my map I noticed there were some professional services teams that I had not engaged with and in my reflection, I resolve to learn more about their work and how it influences students. Going through this reflection can change your collaborations to if you allow yourself to notice.  

A reflective framework to help people engage with V4 and V5

I think what we’ve got here is a framework for V4 and V5, which is:

1. Notice who or what are your connections (people and outside influences).
2. Consider how you interact with them. How do you show up? E.g. aware of supporting others, bringing your work to share, with an advising aspect, to learn from others, enabling, listening, conscious of  etc.
3. Say why you interact with them.  What purpose is it serving?
4. Think about the impact of those engagements. What are you changing in your practice as a result?  
5. And for Senior and Principal Fellows: How is that connection (colleague or external factor) influencing your leadership, or how are you exercising leadership over that wider sphere?And if you are exercising leadership, what strategies do you use to engage people and bring them along? For example, evidence‑based practice, or curation, or advocacy.

If you are stuck around V4 and 5 – use these steps to assist your thinking.