A policy is any decision or directive that sets out the University’s official position on an aspect of its activities. The Executive Committee, Academic Council, and/or Governing Authority can approve policies. These policies apply across the University.

Procedures are a roadmap to enable the implementation of approved policies/statutes and regulations. They are developed/revised by the professional area to which they relate and are approved by Executive Committee. Additional procedures may be identified as required by a professional area. The development/ revision of such procedures must be in accordance with best practice and approved by the relevant Director/Dean/Functional Head.

Statutes are the regulations and law of the University of Limerick approved by the Governing Authority.

Once your policy is approved please forward to policyhub@ul.ie and it will be uploaded to the hub within 5 working days.

All Policies will be available to view in the University of Limerick Policy Hub.

Policies must be removed from local web pages/sites. The Policy Hub will be the sole repository for all Policies.

Please refer to the University of Limerick Policy Management Framework and Policy Toolkit for a step by step guide.

Please refer to the University of Limerick Policy Management Framework.

Policy Interpretation- Change to Academic Titles

Background

  • On 11 January 2023 the Executive Committee of the University agreed to retitle academic staff as outlined in the table below.

  • Existing

    Agreed

    Professor

    Full Professor

    Associate Professor

    Professor

    Senior Lecturer

    Associate Professor A

    Lecturer Above Bar

    Associate Professor B

    Lecturer Below Bar

    Assistant Professor

The decision of Executive Committee to retitle academic staff comes into effect on 14 July 2023.

  • Policy Interpretation
  • The changes to academic titles may give rise to unintended difficulties of policy interpretation, particularly where any policy applies differentially depending on an individual’s grade (e.g., “professor” -v- “lecturer”)
  • All such interpretative issues will be resolved over time as policies are updated in accordance with their scheduled review/revision dates and (where relevant) policies will be amended to incorporate the changes to academic titles.
  • University's Approach
  • Where any interpretative difficulties arise during the period prior to any policy being reviewed/revised, the following three principles will be applied to resolve the matter:
  1. It shall be understood that no improvement in employees’ contractual terms and conditions of employment is intended by reason of the changes made to academic titles.
  2. Where any policy (or any provision thereof) is open to more than one logical interpretation, the one which best approximates to the position as it was prior to the changes to academic titles shall be the default interpretation.
  3. Where issues of interpretation/uncertainty remain having applied (a) and (b) above the issue shall be resolved by reference to the plain intention of the University in drafting the relevant policy, where that intention can be ascertained from reading the Policy as a whole.
  • Disputes
  • If applying the principles above gives rise to irrationality and/or absurdity of interpretation, then the matter will be adjudicated upon by the policy owner (e.g., Director of HR, VP Research, etc.), and/or their nominee. The “policy owner” is the person who has responsibility for the drafting and the review of the relevant policy.
  • If the employee is unhappy with the adjudication, the matter may be dealt with as a grievance.