Advance HE Fellowship Success Program

The Advance HE Fellowship Success Program (formerly Western Educational Fellowship Scheme - WEFS) supports academic and professional staff in applying for international recognition of their higher education practice with Advance HE.

The Fellowship enables staff to benchmark their practice according to the Professional Standards Framework (PSF 2023). Advance HE Fellowships are internationally recognised, portable and ongoing. Applying for a Fellowship encourages staff to use the PSF 2023 to reflect, develop, benchmark and demonstrate the quality of their higher education practice.

Becoming a Fellow with Advance HE demonstrates a commitment to reflective teaching, learning support, and effective educational practice within the discipline and/or division in which you work. For academics, a Fellowship adds to the suite of evidence for academic performance and promotion and for professional staff, it offers visible recognition of how your practice supports students’ educational success.

Round 7 (2025) Information

Information session

The information session was held on Thursday, 10 April 2025. Watch it below or online.

Please note captions are currently being edited so may contain errors.

Expressions of interest and review criteria

Learning and Teaching is excited to be supporting staff to develop an application in 2025. Expressions of Interest are now open and will be reviewed against the following criteria

• Associate Fellow
• Fellow
• Senior Fellow

Timeline

The program of support is explained in further detail below.

What is involved?

There are four categories of Fellowship, reflecting the wide range of learning and teaching support carried out by academic and professional staff working in the higher education sector. To begin, staff choose and negotiate the category of Fellowship that best reflects their educational practice. Advance HE's online Fellowship Decision Tool assists staff in determining the category of Fellowship that best reflects their current role and experience. Staff then prepare a written application to demonstrate how their practice is aligned with the PSF 2023. Participants need to obtain Supporting Statements from two or three referees, depending on the category of Fellowship. The final application and the referees’ statements are submitted to Advance HE assessment by an international panel of Advance HE Assessors and Reviewers. Upon receipt of Fellowship by Advance HE, Fellows are entitled to use relevant post-nominal letters to recognise their category of Fellowship. An overview of the categories is outlined below.

Important: Please use the free Advance HE Fellowship Decision Tool to determine which Fellowship category is most appropriate for you to apply for, or whether you need to engage with further professional learning activities to upskill and collect required evidence before applying in this round.

*This is based on a minimum amount of time previous applicants have suggested it takes to develop an application. This should be used as a guide only as individual times may differ.

Successful Fellows join a community of over 8,200 Advance HE Fellows in Australia and 9,560 Fellows in Australasia. There are over 200,000 Fellows world-wide. Fellows receive ongoing access to the resources and opportunities for professional learning provided by Advance HE.

Western's program of support

Since 2017, the Office of the PVC Learning and Teaching has supported six rounds of academic and professional staff to develop Fellowship applications. Currently, Western has over 200 Fellows comprised of doctoral students, project officers, sessional teachers, librarians, student partners, subject coordinators, APAs, DAPs, Associate Deans, and L&T senior leaders.

In the Advance HE Fellowship Success Program you are supported through

• a suite of professional learning opportunities to develop your Fellowship application
• collegial group mentoring (led by existing Fellows)
• access to the programs dedicated vUWS site containing guidance, templates, scholarly resources, videos and examples of successful Western Fellowship applications
• workshops to unpack the PSF 2023 Descriptors and Dimensions, and
• application development writing sessions

The funding model for this year’s program has been revised. Applications will now be funded through the respective Schools and Divisions, who will decide which applications will receive funding . The latest information to support developing an application (templates, guidelines etc.) is available to all staff.

What do Western Fellows say about the Experience?

“I thought the level of support was excellent. As a sessional staff member, it was great to be included; I think more sessional tutors would consider applying if they were confident it would be recognised by Subject convenors / senior academics, and would play a role in securing further teaching work”.

“this is a great process to consolidate existing professional practices that I think could be expanded  more broadly to offer professional development in teaching and learning for staff that could culminate in a WEFS application.”

“One of the most challenging but best experience during COVID-19. I felt a sense of purpose and was driven to accomplish this work to the best of my ability. Felt really good after completing this.”

How can I become a Fellow?

There are two ways:

1. Expressions of Interest to join the Advance HE Fellowship Success Program Round 7 have closed. A future round of support is yet to be confirmed.


2. Apply on your own at any time that suits you and pay the application fee yourself (or discuss your professional recognition goals with your supervisor about obtaining a Fellowship). As WSU staff, you are eligible to a discounted rate as the institution is a member of Advance HE. If you pursue your application independently you will have access to the latest information (templates, guidelines, successful Fellowship application examples) on the vUWS site.

Please contact Learning and Teaching for further information.