University academic staff are under increasing pressure to deliver high-quality teaching in the face of many other demands on their time, dwindling staff-student ratios, increasing student expectations as a result of the current fees regime, and growing diversity in students’ backgrounds and abilities. There is also an increasing expectation from both professional bodies and undergraduates that medical science – including physiology – teaching in professional programmes such as medicine, dentistry, nursing and veterinary science is embedded in a context that emphasises its clinical relevance and application. This can be difficult for teaching staff who do not have the relevant clinical background and experience. In the first part of my talk I will draw on my experiences from large group lectures, laboratory practicals and project work to describe and evaluate various initiatives aimed at engaging undergraduates in the face of these challenges. The second part of my talk will focus on teachers, rather than students, in higher education. In 2009-10, two publications1, 2 highlighted concerns that recognition of achievements in teaching was secondary to recognition of research success in most cases of academic career progression. This imbalance was also acknowledged in the 2011 White Paper on Higher Education in England: “Students at the Heart of the System” 3 , which stated that the changes being proposed would “lead to higher education institutions concentrating on high-quality teaching, and staff earning promotion for teaching ability rather than research alone”. I will describe work undertaken by The Physiological Society since 2011, some of which has been in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Heads of University Biosciences and the Society of Biology4, to determine how much change there has been in this area, and consider what else can be done to ensure that teaching achievements are appropriately recognised, valued and rewarded in career progression in higher education.