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This article reports the outcomes of a study, undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective, of academics' conceptions of their own growth and development as a university teacher. A range of ways of understanding teaching development emerged, representing in particular a varying focus on development experienced as an increase in: the teacher's comfort with teaching; the teacher's knowledge and skills; and learning outcomes for students. This work builds on previous studies of university teachers' conceptions of teaching, which has been shown to be related to their approaches to teaching and, thus, to student learning outcomes. Relationships between conceptions of teaching and conceptions of growing and developing as a teacher are also presented and discussed.

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While there is a substantial body of literature on academics' development as teachers, investigation of their development as researchers post-PhD is rare. This study undertook an investigation of academics' ways of understanding their own growth and development as a university researcher. Four qualitatively different ways of understanding research development emerged: (1) Becoming confident as a researcher;(2) Becoming recognised as a researcher; (3) Becoming more productive as a researcher; and (4) Becoming more sophisticated as a researcher. The first category of development was seen as most relevant to the early stages of an academic career, when doing a PhD or during one's first academic appointment, but may also re-occur at later stages of a career during changes in research direction, etc. The last three categories are seen as relevant to all career stages, including more advanced stages as well as the early stages of a research career. Comparisons between academics' ways of understanding their growth and development as a university researcher and as a university teacher are also presented.