Thursday, 07 August 2025
Two University of Nottingham academics, and a student careers service, have each received a prestigious Advance HE Award for promoting excellence in higher education and for demonstrating the impact of teaching in the sector.
Dr Onyeka Nubia, Assistant Professor of History, and Dr Xuan Feng, Associate Professor in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour at Nottingham University Business School China, have been awarded the 2025 National Teaching Fellowship; while the team behind the Nottingham Advantage Award (NAA) Scheme (pictured) has received the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE).
Advance HE is a British charity and professional membership scheme which promotes excellence in higher education.
One of the 2025 National Teaching Fellowship Award recipients is Dr Nubia in recognition of his transformative and sustained impact on student learning, curriculum development, inclusive pedagogy, and national teaching practice over many decades. Dr Nubia has fundamentally reshaped the teaching of British history to better reflect its full complexity and diversity.
His teaching practices – including his use of critical frameworks, rethinking historical narratives, and embedding pre-colonial European histories – have not only deepened students’ historical understanding but also inspired life-changing academic and personal transformations. Many students cite his teaching as pivotal in shaping their career choices and intellectual confidence, with some going on to win prestigious awards or pursue postgraduate study under his supervision.
Dr Nubia’s award recognises exceptional national work in teaching and research that not only transformed the learning experience for thousands of students but also helped reshape conversations about history, equity, and the role of higher education in a changing society. Dr Nubia is a 21st century historian, whose determination exemplifies the purpose and prestige of a National Teaching Fellowship.
It is a difficult time for HE. But I believe that we can succeed if we are determined enough. It is a great honour to be granted this award. Especially because it was student recognition that began this journey.
Dr Xuan Feng, also receives a 2025 National Teaching Fellowship Award. This prestigious recognition goes to individuals who have made an outstanding impact on student outcomes and the teaching profession in higher education. Lying at the heart of Dr Feng’s contribution is her innovative ‘ECO-approach’, which integrates her global HR expertise with cutting-edge pedagogy to advance student employability. This pioneering ECO-approach emphasises Experiential learning and Collaboration through industry-supported learning experiences, ensuring curricula meet global job market demands. The model fosters student Ownership via tailored mentoring and coaching, ensuring graduates achieve both immediate career success and long-term professional growth.
By creating a dynamic ECO-system – where industry, policymakers, and alumni co-design solutions – Dr Feng’s pedagogical innovation exemplifies the transformative power of cross-cultural, research-informed, and industry-connected teaching. While her ECO-approach has achieved exceptional student employability outcomes, her broad impact extends to shaping institutional strategy, national policy, and international practice through rigorous pedagogical research and deep industry engagement. This Fellowship celebrates her as a global leader in advancing educational excellence with measurable real-world impact.
It is an extraordinary privilege to be awarded the National Teaching Fellowship as a contributor to Nottingham’s global educational mission.
She added: "In this era of unprecedented challenges, we must transcend disciplinary and cultural boundaries to advance student development and employability – fostering transformative collaborations that empower our talented students to realise and maximise their potential for global impact.”
The Nottingham Advantage Award (NAA) team – comprising team members from across the university’s Nottingham, Malaysia and China campuses – has been recognised with Advance HE’s Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) for their innovative, inclusive and sustained contribution to student employability and personal development across three international campuses.
Established in 2008, the NAA is a pioneering extracurricular skills award that enables students to engage in interdisciplinary, authentic, and employer-informed learning experiences. But what distinguishes the NAA is the team’s longstanding commitment to collaboration – with students, staff, alumni, and industry partners – and its responsive, student-led evolution over 17 years.
The NAA team exemplifies sustained, high-impact collaboration in teaching and learning. Their agile, student-led model has influenced policy, improved outcomes for underrepresented groups, and positioned the University of Nottingham as a national leader in co-curricular learning. For these reasons the CATE panel recognised this as an outstanding example of how inclusive, cross-institutional collaboration can drive innovation, equity, and student success at scale.
It was a privilege to reflect on the range of inclusion by design developments, our collaborative working and also the unique reach and impact of the NAA over the past 17 years.
Paul Charman, Deputy Director of CES, added: “Working with Fiona on the CATE was a development opportunity for the NAA team and our submission provided a positive sense of achievement, even before we heard the fantastic news that we had been successful!”
The award ceremony for this year’s winners is due to take place on Thursday 25 September 2025, at the Harbour Hotel, Bristol.
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 97 in the world and 17th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the third most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2024 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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