RATE

The Recognising and Advancing Teaching Excellence (RATE) Award scheme was first introduced by Stirling Students' Union in 2010. RATE was born from the Union's desire to recognise the excellent quality of teaching at the University of Stirling and to provide students with the opportunity to identify areas of good practice within their learning experience. This has now expanded to include recognition and celebration of the support not only academic staff provide, but also supporting staff members and Faculty Officers.

The awards have continued to grow in success and popularity since their introduction. On average, we recieve over 1000 nominations, resulting in the nomination of over 400 academic and professional staff. Those nominations show that our students value the support that they are given by academic staff, support staff, and student reps, as well as the time that they dedicate to students. .

With our help and support, University of Stirling staff members have been able to go forward for National Learning and Teaching awards: in 2014, May McCreddie (School of Health Sciences) was shortlisted for the Most Innovative Teacher of the Year Award at the Times Higher Education Awards, using the qualitive data we had received from the RATE Awards as their evidence, and 2016 Postgraduate Supervisor of the Year winner, David Lavaelle (School of Sport) went forward for the THES Outstanding Research Supervisor Award. 

The RATE awards depend on student nominations. Your nominations are used to inform the University about what you, as a student body, consider to be the best methods of teaching, student engagement, and student support. They are also used to identify any necessary improvements in learning and teaching, and student support at the University. RATE is intended to empower students to be co-creators in their learning & teaching experience through feeding back about their learning experience at Stirling.

RATE Awards 2022

Thank you to everyone who nominated in the 2022 RATE Awards. Your feedback is vital to the development of learning and teaching at the University and in recognising the hard work and dedication of staff across the University. The RATE Awards were held on Wednesday 27th April 2022.

You can check out the honourable mentions and winners in the RATE 2022 presentation. A plan text copy of the RATE 2022 presentation is also available here: Plan Text RATE 2022 presentation.

RATE report 2021

You can view our final report from the RATE Awards 2021 by clicking the image below or here: RATE Report 2021. A plain text copy of the RATE Report 2021 is available here: Plain Text RATE Report 2021.  

This project was partially funded thanks to the philanthropic support of staff, alumni and friends via the Stirling Fund.