A research career is not a teaching post with reading attached. Some scholars want the laboratory, the archive or the field, and treat the classroom as a duty rather than the work. Universities still hire them. The appointment, the publications and any outside recognition are three different things, and only the first is a job.
A research-led record is built in public. A doctorate is examined. Papers go to journals that a hiring panel will actually read, with a method another researcher could follow and a claim no larger than the evidence. A DOI, not an acceptance email, is the citation. Grants, datasets, patents or a supervised thesis count where the field counts them. Teaching still appears on most curricula vitae, because even a research chair sits inside a faculty, but a thin publication list is not repaired by a heavy timetable. Promotion panels in research universities ask what was found, where it was published, and who has used it.
That record can support recognition. It cannot be replaced by it. The International Association for Quality Assurance in Pre-Tertiary and Higher Education offers two awards that fit a research-heavy career in different ways.
The Distinguished Scholar Award is the closer match for a person whose evidence is the published work. It recognises exemplary achievement in education and research. The page is at https://www.qahe.org/distinguished-scholar-award-recognizing-excellence-in-education-and-research/. A paper, a series of papers, or a short book is supporting evidence. It is not an automatic award. The file that matters is the curriculum vitae, the publication links and a short note of the contribution. The current listing is US$650 for a digital certificate and a website profile, or US$850 for a hard-copy certificate and a website profile, plus a 5 per cent administration charge. The award is a recognition of scholarly contribution. It is not an academic degree, and it does not confer a right to supervise or to award qualifications.
The Distinguished Professorship Award, offered with Pebble Hills University, is the closer match where the record also includes leadership of a field, a laboratory, a research group or a professional practice that has changed how a subject is taught. The page is at https://www.qahe.org/distinguished-professorship-award-with-phu/. It is open to researchers advancing a subject, to university teachers with a strong record, and to practitioners who have influenced education. Recipients are listed on the QAHE and PHU platforms. The award is not an employment contract and not a chair at PHU or at any other university. It does not confer a doctorate, a habilitation, or authority to award qualifications. PHU is an international provider of online and offshore learning. It does not claim to be a national university, and a QAHE listing does not create that status. A holder may use the award description as given on the certificate. The wording should not say that the holder is a professor of a named university unless that university has appointed them.
The two awards can be sought together, and they should be described separately. A scholar whose life is the papers applies for the Distinguished Scholar Award and, if the record also shows leadership of the field, for the Distinguished Professorship Award. One certificate does not imply the other. Neither certificate makes the holder a professor in post. The university that employs the candidate still decides the appointment, the title and the right to supervise. QAHE decides only whether the record supports the award named on the certificate.
Enquiries, with the curriculum vitae and the publication list, go to enquiry@qahe.org. Say which award is sought, or that both are sought, and attach the links. The journal decides whether a paper is published. The employer decides the post. QAHE decides the recognition. Those three decisions should not be folded into one sentence.
