Reader (academic rank)

The title of reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship. It is an academic rank above senior lecturer (or principal lecturer in the New Universities), recognising a distinguished record of original research at professorial level. In the British ranking, for some universities a reader could be seen as a professor without a chair, similar to the distinction between professor extraordinarius and professor ordinarius at some European universities, professor and chaired professor in Hong Kong and professor B and chaired professor in Ireland. Both readers and professors in the UK would correspond to professors in the US.

The promotion criteria applied to a readership in the United Kingdom are similar to those applied to a professorship: advancing from senior lecturer to reader requires evidence of a distinguished record of original research as well as a significant record of teaching excellence and service to the university.

An incompatibility of ranking systems between different (English-speaking) countries makes the position of reader difficult to place outside the context of the United Kingdom. A similar title used in some countries, for instance in Sweden, is docent, which is officially translated in English as reader.