The work aims to illustrate the design and the first results of a survey which involved 1849 university professors who were teaching courses at Bachelor's and Master's Degrees of University of Padova during the academic year 2012/13. The research is part of a project of improvement of the academic educational innovation and the quality of academic teaching. The data was directly obtained using a CAWI questionnaire which was distributed to the whole teaching staff, and it was linked to administrative data related to the educational offer and students’ evaluation of teaching in the same academic year. The results were summarized using some indicators which showed the diffusion of good practices of teaching, support needs, beliefs, interest and availability of the respondents. We identified sub-groups of potential participants for the qualitative phase of the research and subjects to involve in different and integrated activities directed to develop teachers’ professional competences.