Teaching award winners – (in)visible best-practice examples? Findings from Austria and Switzerland

This contribution focuses on the institutional and the individual significance of teaching awards in higher education: (1) How do recipients of teaching awards influence the development of university teaching? (2) (In what ways) Can teaching awards promote academic careers? To clarify these questions, we draw on data from two online questionnaire surveys of award winners from Austria (n=64) and Switzerland (n=131). The results indicate that universities use award winners only to a limited extent as a resource for the institutional development of teaching. In approximately a quarter of the cases, the award had a positive impact on the academic career of the recipients.