Faculty development refers to all activities health professionals pursue to improve their knowledge, skills and behaviours as teachers and educators, leaders and managers, and researchers and scholars. (Steinert Y. Faculty Development in the Health Professions: A Focus on Research and Practice. NY: Springer, 2014.). An institution that has achieved excellence in faculty development prepares faculty members for their various academic roles with a breadth of faculty development programs, which are evaluated for impact and which contribute to the scholarship of faculty development.

An applicant school may have a single centralized program or a decentralized series of programs of faculty development to enhance teaching/education, leadership and scholarship. These may include programs for: new faculty orientation; guidance for career advancement and academic promotion; mentoring and advising of the faculty; faculty member skill development as teachers and educators, leaders and managers, and researchers and scholars; and retirement planning. Applicants will describe the total array of the school’s faculty development programs in the application summary and will specify whether the application will describe the whole series of programs OR focus on the specific program that prepares teachers and educators, educational leaders and educational scholars. The program must include a focus on those who teach undergraduate students but may also include those who teach postgraduates and practicing clinicians. The school’s designated program(s) will constitute “the program of faculty development” for the ASPIRE program application and be assessed using the criteria for excellence.

Cultural, social, fiscal and other contextual issues may influence how faculty development is provided, which will vary from school to school. Excellence may be found in institutions with limited resources just as much as in wealthier institutions. The way in which institutions demonstrate cost effectiveness and context appropriateness will be taken into account by the panel when reviewing individual submissions.