December 2020

This month reports summarises four articles that in/directly relate to the impact of universities. The first piece of research empirically identified three distinct logics that guide universities (Shields & Watermeyer 2020). The second paper analysed different institutional strategic aims based on their global rankings (Stensaker et al. 2019). The third article is a critique of the very structure of modern scientific knowledge production (Maxwell 2019). The last study analysed funding proposals on how they utilised pathways for impact, as well as how they were judged (Ma et al. 2020).

1. They conducted a survey amongst 300+ UK academic staff from 18 universities, sampled randomly to ensure a good disciplinary split. The respondents were asked to score their agreement of how much of a given purpose corresponds to the mission of a university. They took the different missions from the wider literature, and found that three overarching purposes arose empirically, that of “autonomy”, “utilitarian” and “managerial” which all have tensions between them. They conclude that their research has made explicit the underpinning value dimension of university conduct.

2. The authors conducted a review of 78 university strategies, of what they deemed as high-ranked, low-ranked, and unranked universities in 33 countries and 9 regions of the world. They concluded, depending on where in the global rankings institutions were, reflected their behaviour and aspirations, with high-ranking institution being much more concerned about status and prestige meanwhile low ranking ones tried to find their justification in more local and tangible benefits (e.g. moral aspects and/or anchor institution). 

3. In this paper, Nicholas Maxwell reflects back over his entire intellectual career. According to him, there is a deep structural irrationality within academia, and it is traceable back to the French philosophes, who were overtly enamoured with scientific approach to social engineering. He argues, the irrationality, is that the scientific approach reduces complexity by focusing on a specific subset of problems, meanwhile wise social planning requires an appreciation of the whole.   

4. The authors performed a content analysis of applications to the Science Foundation of Ireland Investigators Programme. In total, the authors reviewed 261 proposal and their comments with approved funding of over €34 million for 32 projects between 2012 and 2016. They found three overarching themes: (1) reviewers favoured short-term tangible impacts, particular commercial ones, (2) reviewers commented more on formative impacts (process-oriented) compared to outcome-orientated ones, and (3) scientific impacts were discussed in the impact section. The authors argue, funding bodies’ should clearly identify the impacts they wish to pursue rather than a general wish list, and more focus should be put on process-orientated impacts.    

1. Shields, R., & Watermeyer, R. (2020). Competing institutional logics in universities in the United Kingdom: schism in the church of reason. Studies in Higher Education, 45(1), 3-17.

2. Stensaker, B., Lee, J. J., Rhoades, G., Ghosh, S., Castiello-Gutiérrez, S., Vance, H., ... & O’Toole, L. (2019). Stratified university strategies: The shaping of institutional legitimacy in a global perspective. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(4), 539-562.

3. Maxwell, N. (2019). The scandal of the irrationality of academia. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education. 1 (1):105-128.

4. Ma, L., Luo, J., Feliciani, T., & Shankar, K. (2020). How to evaluate ex ante impact of funding proposals? An analysis of reviewers’ comments on impact statements. Research Evaluation.