Academic CVs, Research Statements and Teaching Portfolios: Presenting Your Contribution

Start with the assessment criteria

Read the position or funding call before choosing what to emphasise. Identify the capabilities the reader needs to assess: research, teaching, leadership, collaboration, service or public contribution. Different applications may require different formats, so follow the stated instructions rather than treating one template as universally correct.

Create an evidence list for each criterion. Include the activity, your role, the result and the material that supports the claim. This helps avoid a common problem: a long document that lists many experiences without explaining their relevance. Keep a complete private record, then select appropriately for the application.

Make the CV accurate and easy to navigate

Use clear sections and consistent dates. Distinguish qualifications awarded from those in progress. Separate published work from accepted, submitted or planned outputs, and label each status accurately. Identify your contribution to collaborative projects without claiming sole responsibility for a team achievement.

Check names, titles, links and institutional affiliations. Include identifiers or public profiles only where they are correct and useful. Avoid padding the document with unrelated certificates or unsupported descriptions of prestige. If a role has changed or a project ended, update the record rather than leaving an impression of continuing responsibility.

Explain research as a coherent contribution

A research statement should connect the problem, the evidence or methods, your contribution and a plausible next agenda. Explain why the questions matter and what makes the proposed work feasible. Distinguish a future plan from a funded or approved project, and identify important dependencies.

UKRI's narrative CV guidance provides one example of assessing a wider range of research and innovation contributions. ^[1] Use that idea to recognise relevant work such as methods, software, mentoring or public engagement, while following the exact format required by the application. Broadening the evidence does not remove the need for accuracy and relevance.

Build a teaching portfolio with explanation

A portfolio may include a teaching statement, selected materials, assessment examples and evidence of reflection. The purpose is to show how you make educational decisions and how you respond to evidence about learning. A collection of attractive slides alone may reveal little about teaching judgement.

Yale's teaching-portfolio guidance illustrates the value of annotating materials so that readers understand their context and use. ^[2] For each selected item, explain the learners, objective, activity and what you learned from using it. Protect student privacy and obtain appropriate permission before including identifiable work or feedback.

Illustrative example: explaining an assessment redesign

Imagine an educator replaces a final recall test with a staged analysis project. In the portfolio, they include an anonymised task brief and rubric, explain the learning outcome and describe how feedback was provided between stages. They also identify a difficulty: some students misunderstood the evidence requirement.

The educator then explains the revision made for the next course. This account demonstrates a reasoned decision and reflective improvement. It is more informative than claiming that the redesign transformed learning without suitable evidence or presenting only the most favourable student comment.

Review the application as a connected set

• Check that all documents use consistent dates and roles.
• Match the strongest evidence to the published criteria.
• Explain technical work for readers outside a narrow specialism.
• Label publication and project status precisely.
• Confirm permissions and anonymise sensitive materials.
• Remove unsupported metrics, inflated titles and irrelevant repetition.
• Test links and follow file-format requirements.

Ask a knowledgeable colleague to review whether the contribution is understandable, and another reader to check clarity. Feedback should improve presentation without inventing achievements or changing the substance of the record.

Preserve integrity while showing development

Career breaks, changing responsibilities and unfinished work can be described accurately when relevant to the application. Follow the opportunity's guidance on contextual information and disclose only what is necessary. A coherent account does not require a perfect or uninterrupted career.

These documents cannot guarantee selection, and expectations differ across countries, disciplines and employers. Their purpose is to make your record assessable: what you did, how you approached it, what evidence supports it and how the experience informs the work you propose to undertake next.