December 2021
This month reports summarises four articles that in/directly relate to the impact of universities. The first represent an exploration of how science lost its moral dimension (Shapin, 2015). The second piece of research reflects upon the emergent gloablised nature of science and its relation to the individual researcher (Kwiek, 2021). The third represents a reflection on the tensions within conducting commissioned research (Richter & Hostettler, 2015). The last study investigates the link between impact narratives and governance (Bandola-Gill & Smith, 2021).
[1]) In this short piece Shapin describes the historical change of the moral sensibilities of modern science, by extension defining the very notion of modernity itself. Modernity, is the dismissal of the moral dimension of the historical scientific pursuit of truth (as a quest of the natural philosopher to come closer to God) presenting science as the only form of legitimate knowledge. Whilst broadly accepted, such sentiments all too easily manifest as a form of scientism, where scientists merely become the justification of other powerful interests conveniently abdicating their own moral responsibility. Hence, the problem of trust and authority, is not solved by a slight of hand that science is the only legitimate form of knowledge, regardless of how much institutional backing it receives.
[2]) The study utilises a scientometrics approach, comparing publication output, citations and authors affiliation, to make inferences on the changing nature of global science between 2000 and 2019. An emergent trend, is that the degree of internal collaboration increases, clustering more publication and citation at elite institutions and subsequently individuals. Globally, this created tirpart centre world order, with the USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific occupying their centres. Furthermore, this international character of both institutions and individuals, defies the constraints of the nation state, and makes the emergent networks increasingly self-organising and self-policing. Nevertheless, the successful individuals still largely derive their research funding from national organisation, regardless if their prestige is derived globally.
[3]) The authors reflect upon their own experiences of conducting commissioned research, departing from their own experiences within the context of prison research. They acknowledge that from the outset, commissioned research may indeed seem to work within the context of academic research as it represents a source of revenue and adheres to the logic of collaboration. Nevertheless, once started the different evaluation regimes (stakeholder vs. university), demands of reporting and data collection and ways of articulation all represent points of friction for good research practice. The authors conclude that, question of authorship and ownership need to be agreed prior to the project start in order to mitigate potential problems and conflicts down the line.
[4]) The study departs from semi-structured interviews, focus groups and document analysis of REF impact case studies across different disciplines at a research intensive UK university. The findings reveal that although the qualitative nature of the impact assessment invites for more flexibility, the very narrative framing of making causal inference of research restricts the possibilities of what type of claims can be made. The consequence being, that impact evaluation turns into a form of governance, benefiting convincing argument construction and simple causality chains. The implication being, that open-ended, serendipitous or conceptual research has great difficulties accounting for their impact, regardless of what disciplinary background it stems from.
[1] Shapin, S. (2015). The virtue of scientific thinking. Boston Review. January 20.
[2] Kwiek, M. (2021). The Globalization of Science: The Increasing Power of Individual Scientists. In: The Oxford Handbook of Education and Globalization. Edited by Paola Mattei, Xavier Dumay, Eric Mangez & Jacqueline Behrend. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2021
[3] Richter, M., & Hostettler, U. (2015). Conducting commissioned research in neoliberal academia: The conditions evaluations impose on research practice. Current sociology, 63(4), 493-510.
[4] Bandola-Gill, J., & Smith, K. E. (2021). Governing by narratives: REF impact case studies and restrictive storytelling in performance measurement. Studies in Higher Education, 1-15.
