Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to begin to unpack contested meanings of teaching excellence and the different ways in which excellence is explored. This includes reference to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in the UK, as well as other national schemes. The chapter examines some of the critical perspectives of the TEF, including the increasing relevance of exploring excellence from subject-level perspectives, as well as discussions about how effectively metrics are used as measures of excellence. The chapter then highlights the value of adopting a student-staff partnership model to enable more nuanced, contextualised and individualised understandings of teaching excellence, particularly in disciplinary contexts. The chapter ends by giving an overview of each of the chapters in the book.