Mary Henkel

Academic Values and the University as Corporate Enterprise

A study of the implications of quality assessment and quality assurance policies finds that higher education institutions are responding to current pressures with policies and structures that draw substantially on post-bureaucratic or ‘new public management’ thinking. In contrast, many academics are struggling to hold on to values and conceptions of professional practice that are traditionally held to depend on pre-modern forms of governance and organisation.

Can academic autonomy survive in the knowledge society? A perspective from Britain

The paper analyses the challenges posed to the principle of academic autonomy by the knowledge society and new conceptions of the state. It argues that these signify the breaking down of boundaries that have been critical for the justification of academic rights to self‐government and freedom of inquiry. The ideal of academe as a sovereign, bounded territory, free by right from intervention in its governance of knowledge development and transmission, has been superseded by ideals of engagement with societies in which academic institutions are ‘axial structures’. The paper then explores alternative concepts of institutional and individual self‐determination within a reconfigured polity, in which boundaries are permeable and the governance of knowledge and knowledge‐based institutions is shared and often contested between the state, the market and academic institutions. Institutional and individual academic autonomy understood in this way is not given or achieved once and for all, but neither is it out of academic control.

The modernisation of research evaluation: The case of the UK

The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), first established by the UK University Grants Committee in 1985 has been an important instrument in the modernisation of higher education in the UK. It is a means of rationalising the stratification of universities and the concentration of research resources, and of maximising research output. At the same time, while its operation remains substantially under professional control, it has had profound implications for the academic profession. The article explores these through analysing the workings of the RAE and its consequences for higher education institutions, departments and individuals. It suggests that the RAE has triggered substantial changes in the management of the research function in universities and in the culture of university departments. It has disturbed the web of relationship between the individual academic, the discipline, the department and the institution. It has impacted on individual professional identities and concepts of research responsibilities.

Teaching Quality Assessments: Public Accountability and Academic Autonomy in Higher Education

This paper considers the implications of the introduction of mandatory assessment by the United Kingdoms Higher Education Funding Councils of the quality of education in higher education institutions. An examination of the assessment processes and the responses to them of academics in four universities suggests that a struggle between the government and the universities begun in the early 1980s has yet to be resolved. The data are drawn from a current international study of the impacts of higher education reforms in England, Sweden and Norway. The issues are whether public accountability and academic autonomy can be reconciled and if they can, on whose terms. While government declares its support for academic autonomy and universities for public accountability the contest between them about what these principles mean is still very much alive.

Performance measurement in higher education—revisited

The development of performance indicators (PIs) in higher education in the UK since 1990 is reviewed. The period has witnessed a huge expansion in student numbers, brought to a halt in 1994. The ex...

Making and implementing foresight policy to engage the academic community: health and life scientists' involvement in, and response to, development of the UK's technology foresight programme

Abstract Successful implementation of research policy that is intended to impinge, at least partially, on universities often requires the engagement of the academic community. This article provides a detailed analysis of the formulation and operationalisation of the technology foresight programme in the UK, particularly in relation to the health and life sciences (HLS). The background and objectives of the policy are scrutinised, as well as the attempts to implement it through specifically created structures in addition to existing research and funding councils. Such an investigation enables a thorough assessment to be made of the academic response to technology foresight. The analysis also reveals: the mixed government objectives for science policy; the practical problems created by the size of the HLS field and the comparatively small amount of resources put behind the policy. Consequently, despite the careful policy analysis and the commitment of some academics to the policy development and implementation, the conclusion reached is that the further down the system one looks the more limited the response from the academic community.

Future Directions for Higher Education Policy Research

Although the general picture drawn in this paper is not wholly discouraging in terms of research receptivity, the potential lessons for researcher behaviour that might lead to a more positive receptor function are not easy to identify. The broad conclusion is in fact virtually a tautology — that attempts to secure a mutually fruitful relationship might produce a better relationship. Where reception is good it may also depend upon the accident of whether the research chimes in with the Zeitgeist and whether the receptors are recruited from those who are likely to be predisposed towards research.

The impact of policy changes on the academic profession in England

The policy frame and resource base within which universities work in the UK have undergone drastic changes. Whilst the nature of changes at the governmental level has often been remarked upon, there is little empirical work on the impact of these changes on academic values and working. This paper reports findings from the English component of an Anglo–Norwegian-Swedish project nearing completion which gives an account of the policy changes and their impact on values, research agendas and criteria, and modes of creating and ‘delivering’ the curriculum. Whilst the research invites caution about overstating the discontinuities of policy over the last 20 years, it displays the considerable effects of policy changes which emerge, however, differently in different subject areas and types of institution.

Gender Equality in Academic Career Progression: A Matter of Time?

The twenty-first century has seen the reduction of gender inequalities in the academic profession rise up European, national and institutional policy agendas. Significant progress has been made in policy analyses of the barriers to equality and programmes for change have multiplied. However, the profession is still characterised by strong vertical gender segregation The contention that gender equality in the academic profession is simply ‘a matter of time’ is called into question in this chapter. Drawing on a range of higher education research studies undertaken in the last two decades, it suggests that such a contention can be justified only in terms of more complex understandings of time and its social, cultural and psychological dimensions. Their importance has been further underlined by changes in information and communication technologies and the impacts on academics of ‘fast time’, compressed time and space-time.

Actor Constellations and Policy Making

The chapter focuses on the HE sector itself, and the way in which it shapes HE policies in the light of two different perspectives: The first emphasizes the importance of organizational arrangements of the HE sectors for the shaping of HE policies. Then a comparative analysis of three countries—England, Italy and Norway is developed. The second perspective focuses on the HE sectors as areas in which organized actors pursue certain goals and values, and is used to provide a detailed analysis of policy processes. The empirical analysis is limited to the same three cases mentioned above. The chapter concludes by suggesting a possible way of conceptualizing the relationship between the organizational setup of the HE sector, its policy processes, and HE policy.