Linking research, training and practice ( profession)...in which way?

St. Arnault (1976) gave an amazing allegory to explain the relation between the three axes (research, training & practice): the three Russian Dolls allegory. The first fat doll refers to the researcher, the medium-sized doll refers to the teacher, while the small doll refers to the frontline practitioner. His wish was ( in the 1960s/1970s) that one day,  in a higher education context, he to have a profile that integrates the three dimensions: research, teaching, and professional acumen/agency. Ideally, the profile would allow the small doll to eventually become the fat one, representing a researcher who has experienced practice, taught that practice, and finally conducted research on that practice. According to Arnault, the positivist approach does not hold much value in an educational context, especially when researching professionally oriented disciplines, if the researcher lacks both professional and pedagogical acumen.

I think that a combination of all three dimensions would certainly be the ideal profile sought in a modern higher education context. This is like the case of a medical doctor who has been a practitioner for years and then taught medicine at the university in addition to his or her daily engagement in research. The same can be said about another faculty in engineering or sports sciences. A researcher who lacks practical experience and a tailored pedagogical approach for teaching their discipline appears ineffective in today's higher education context.

Lastly, a similar analogy can be applied to the competencies of translation and interpreting faculty. A hybrid profile with frontline expertise in the language industry, proven expertise in innovative training methods and pedagogy, and acumen to do applied research (evidence-based)—these three elements would make an ideal faculty profile in translation departments par excellence...Rare, but not always! This point has been discussed widely in a doctoral research paper submitted in 2017. Updated articles are in the pipeline.

One more point to explore is the fact that how we report that we include research or professional scenarios or practices in the teaching. In some institutions of higher education, this really needs to be rethought, as the focal point of integrating all of these in an ecosystem and an integrated approach, especially in professional open-ended disciplines, is not really made clear and used properly.