Academics, Neo-liberalism and English Higher Education: Decline and Fall

Ian Jamieson; Rajani Naidoo; Jürgen Enders

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20

Academics, Neo-liberalism and English Higher Education: Decline and Fall

Ian Jamieson, Rajani Naidoo, Jürgen Enders

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceeding › Chapter or section

Abstract

The chapter examines the position of academics in English universities since the period when Halsey (Decline of donnish dominion: The British academic professions in the twentieth century. Clarendon Press, 1992) wrote his classic treatise on the decline of the English ‘don’. It surveys the effects of neo liberalism and of marketisation in higher education and the consequent introduction of performance management in research into universities. It asks the question of why there has been so little effective opposition to these measures from university leaders and academics and provides a series of research-based answers.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Higher Education Dynamics
Publisher	Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
Pages	285-297
Number of pages	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2022

Publication series

Name	Higher Education Dynamics
Volume	58
ISSN (Print)	1571-0378
ISSN (Electronic)	2215-1923

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The final issue with the research assessment model in England, widely regarded as a pioneer, points to why it has not been more widely copied. As Sivertsen (2017) has observed, most European countries do not use the UK model of panel evaluation of research publications and peer review. One reason for this difference is cost. If you add up the institutional costs of preparing for the submission and the state’s cost of organising the work of the peer judgement panels, the UK system is very expensive. The total estimated cost of the exercise in 2014 was £246 million. As Martin (2016: 16) has observed, ‘this is a rather expensive solution to the problem of distributing research funds to 100 or so UK universities.’ One might argue that these costs are merely the costs of competition and that the competition itself is important because it identif s those whose productivity and inventiveness merit further investment, an argument that usually satisfies the sup - porters of neo-liberalism. Given the allocation problem (how do we distribute funding for university research), what other solutions are there? Costs could certainly be radically reduced if the UK adopted a metrics-based solution, and in the science f ld there have been proponents of a metrics-based approach where publication-based metrics are well accepted. The other alternative would be to abandon the dual funding model and revert to a single funding model, wholly based on competitive bidding for grants for specific projects. This is essentially the US model where broadly speaking only teaching is funded by metrics-based models.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

Academic profession
England
Neoliberalism
Performance management in institutional research

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20

Cite this

@inbook{4dbae184223f45f0934da4f816f33d78,

title = "Academics, Neo-liberalism and English Higher Education: Decline and Fall",

abstract = "The chapter examines the position of academics in English universities since the period when Halsey (Decline of donnish dominion: The British academic professions in the twentieth century. Clarendon Press, 1992) wrote his classic treatise on the decline of the English {\textquoteleft}don{\textquoteright}. It surveys the effects of neo liberalism and of marketisation in higher education and the consequent introduction of performance management in research into universities. It asks the question of why there has been so little effective opposition to these measures from university leaders and academics and provides a series of research-based answers.",

keywords = "Academic profession, England, Neoliberalism, Performance management in institutional research",

author = "Ian Jamieson and Rajani Naidoo and J{\"u}rgen Enders",

note = "Funding Information: The final issue with the research assessment model in England, widely regarded as a pioneer, points to why it has not been more widely copied. As Sivertsen (2017) has observed, most European countries do not use the UK model of panel evaluation of research publications and peer review. One reason for this difference is cost. If you add up the institutional costs of preparing for the submission and the state{\textquoteright}s cost of organising the work of the peer judgement panels, the UK system is very expensive. The total estimated cost of the exercise in 2014 was £246 million. As Martin (2016: 16) has observed, {\textquoteleft}this is a rather expensive solution to the problem of distributing research funds to 100 or so UK universities.{\textquoteright} One might argue that these costs are merely the costs of competition and that the competition itself is important because it identif s those whose productivity and inventiveness merit further investment, an argument that usually satisfies the sup - porters of neo-liberalism. Given the allocation problem (how do we distribute funding for university research), what other solutions are there? Costs could certainly be radically reduced if the UK adopted a metrics-based solution, and in the science f ld there have been proponents of a metrics-based approach where publication-based metrics are well accepted. The other alternative would be to abandon the dual funding model and revert to a single funding model, wholly based on competitive bidding for grants for specific projects. This is essentially the US model where broadly speaking only teaching is funded by metrics-based models. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.",

year = "2022",

month = dec,

day = "31",

doi = "10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20",

language = "English",

series = "Higher Education Dynamics",

publisher = "Springer Science and Business Media B.V.",

pages = "285--297",

booktitle = "Higher Education Dynamics",

}

TY - CHAP

T1 - Academics, Neo-liberalism and English Higher Education

T2 - Decline and Fall

AU - Jamieson, Ian

AU - Naidoo, Rajani

AU - Enders, Jürgen

N1 - Funding Information: The final issue with the research assessment model in England, widely regarded as a pioneer, points to why it has not been more widely copied. As Sivertsen (2017) has observed, most European countries do not use the UK model of panel evaluation of research publications and peer review. One reason for this difference is cost. If you add up the institutional costs of preparing for the submission and the state’s cost of organising the work of the peer judgement panels, the UK system is very expensive. The total estimated cost of the exercise in 2014 was £246 million. As Martin (2016: 16) has observed, ‘this is a rather expensive solution to the problem of distributing research funds to 100 or so UK universities.’ One might argue that these costs are merely the costs of competition and that the competition itself is important because it identif s those whose productivity and inventiveness merit further investment, an argument that usually satisfies the sup - porters of neo-liberalism. Given the allocation problem (how do we distribute funding for university research), what other solutions are there? Costs could certainly be radically reduced if the UK adopted a metrics-based solution, and in the science f ld there have been proponents of a metrics-based approach where publication-based metrics are well accepted. The other alternative would be to abandon the dual funding model and revert to a single funding model, wholly based on competitive bidding for grants for specific projects. This is essentially the US model where broadly speaking only teaching is funded by metrics-based models. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

PY - 2022/12/31

Y1 - 2022/12/31

N2 - The chapter examines the position of academics in English universities since the period when Halsey (Decline of donnish dominion: The British academic professions in the twentieth century. Clarendon Press, 1992) wrote his classic treatise on the decline of the English ‘don’. It surveys the effects of neo liberalism and of marketisation in higher education and the consequent introduction of performance management in research into universities. It asks the question of why there has been so little effective opposition to these measures from university leaders and academics and provides a series of research-based answers.

AB - The chapter examines the position of academics in English universities since the period when Halsey (Decline of donnish dominion: The British academic professions in the twentieth century. Clarendon Press, 1992) wrote his classic treatise on the decline of the English ‘don’. It surveys the effects of neo liberalism and of marketisation in higher education and the consequent introduction of performance management in research into universities. It asks the question of why there has been so little effective opposition to these measures from university leaders and academics and provides a series of research-based answers.

KW - Academic profession

KW - England

KW - Neoliberalism

KW - Performance management in institutional research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138184774&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20

DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_20

M3 - Chapter or section

AN - SCOPUS:85138184774

T3 - Higher Education Dynamics

SP - 285

EP - 297

BT - Higher Education Dynamics

PB - Springer Science and Business Media B.V.

ER -

Academics, Neo-liberalism and English Higher Education: Decline and Fall

Abstract

Publication series

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this