Transferring Research Knowledge into Teaching in The Built Environment

The link between Research and Teaching (R&T) has long been studied. Most
research concludes by saying that there is no explicit or automatic relationship
between these two activities. Separate quality assurance mechanisms and
imbalanced funding lead to a trade-off between scholarly research and
excellent teaching in higher education institutions. This problem could be
addressed by exploring strategies to link research and teaching, to the benefit
of each other. As identified in previous research this link is dependant on
disciplines and few studies had attempted to explore the R&T link in the Built
Environment (BE) discipline (for example, see Jenkins & Zetter, 2003). With
diverse and multi-disciplinary subjects, the Built Environment is recognised as
a fertile area to investigate this complex R&T relationship. The Research and
Teaching link in this study is identified as a two-way process, for which the
transfer of research into teaching (RtoT) is recognised as more important for
research-based departments, where the emphasis is more on research and
less on teaching activities. In this context, this study introduces guidelines for
research-based departments in the BE on how to transfer research knowledge
into teaching.