28 October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, 2015 Researching the Future: Towards an Inclusive Global Knowledge Economy Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK

Provocations/ Being Untoward What is the field of social science research and who is defining it? Who are the standard makers? How have neoliberal and austerity policy cultures influenced social science research? Does social science research detect some forms of knowing and exclude others? What does research do to academic identities? Who/ what is excluded from the global research economy? What is the future for critical scholarship? 28 October, 2015

Shifting Research Rationalities The Knowledge Economy Neo-liberal Corporate Logic - Competition/ Convergence/Compliance Audit Culture - measuring products/outputs 28 October, October, October, 2015

From Industrial Capitalism to Information/Knowledge Capitalism Emphasises knowledge in creating: economic growth global competitiveness Recognises that information/ knowledge are: highly mobile can be globally marketed Driven by the Network Society (Castells, 1996) Promotes dominance of economic theories in education (Robertson, 2010) (See Drucker, 1993, Peters, 2010; Porter, 1990) 28 October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, October, 2015

Innocent Knowledge? Knowledge production/ custody/ dissemination: Not neutral Infused with power Situated and contingent Largely an invested process Embodied. (Wickramasinghe, 2009). 28 October, 2015

Economics Imperialism Research colonised by the ‘cultural circuits’ of capitalism (Mills and Ratcliffe, 2012)? Instrumentalisation of knowledge/ Quantifiable use value. Research funded for government priorities e.g. security? Non-economics scholarship becoming unfundable or unknowable? Counter-hegemonic/ critical scholarship in danger of becoming ‘socially illegitimate’ (Butler, 2006). 28 October, 2015

Value, Not Values Research productivity = Income-generation Indictor for performance management Exchange in the global prestige economy Innovation for the market Where is? Creativity Discovery Pleasure Intellectual contribution Social justice (Blackmore & Kandiko, 2011; Leathwood & Read, 2013). 28 October, October, October, October, October, October, 2015

Globalisation of Scientised Knowledge/ Power of Number Natural sciences assigned matters of fact Humanities and Social Sciences matters of concern. ‘Gold-standard’ of research methods is the randomised controlled trial… (Colley, 2013) Results are prioritised over processes, numbers over experiences, procedures over ideas, productivity over creativity (Ball and Olmedo, 2012:91). Can scientific understanding alone provide the resources for understanding the social world? 28 October, 2015

Management by Number RAE, ERA, REF Accounting Systems Quantification to grade research. Reducing activity to a common managerial metric. Research = performance indicator for individuals, organisations, and nation states. Global League Tables = Comparison, bench-marking and ranking Aspirational framework Prestige Economy (Collini, 2013; Lucas, 2006) 28 October, 2015

Paradigm Wars/ Cultural Clashes Binaries = every concept haunted by its mutually constituted excluded other. Big Science v Anthropological models. Scientific Realism v Social Constructivism. Positivist/ neo-realist v Interpretative/ relativist epistemologies. Quantitative v Qualitative methods. Problem-solving v Critical. 28 October, October, October, October, 2015

Peer Reviewers: Assemblage of Regulation? Guardians of ‘standards’ Democratising intervention disguising the steering at a distance power base. Part of the measuring apparatus constituted through norms, practices and epistemologies. Scarce resources capriciously allocated by non-accountable and non-transparent processes. Externality problematic in resource- constrained economies? Reluctance to sign over competitive advantage to other researchers? Determine what remains outside of the domain of intelligibility. Captured by hegemony? 28 October, October, October, 2015

Optics and Apparatus What is it that people don’t see? Why don’t they see it? What do current optics/ practices/ specifications reveal and obscure? (Barad, 2007) 28 October, 2015

Impact/ Knowledge Mobilization Demand for ‘value- for-money’ accountability for publicly- funded research. Demonstrable, auditable benefits: Economic Environmental Social Implications Burden of meeting social, economic and environmental needs placed on grant recipients? Research critical of government/ stakeholders? Metric to redirect research in politically approved directions? Forcing research to conform to market ideology/ use value? Demonstrating impact – resource intensive and possibly impracticable? Can impact be known/ predicted/ quantified in a causal way? Imposed performativity (Brown, 2013; Colley, 2013; Fielding, 2003) 28 October, 2015

Academic Identities Research/ knowledge capital = KPI, reputation, power, status and rewards. Identities formed and evaluated in relation to mutable and constructed differences and boundaries. Researchers positioned as supplicants for diminishing/ highly targeted public resources. Logic of relationality = for every winner there are many losers. Psychic economy- shame, pride, humiliation, anxiety. ‘Cruel optimism’? (Berlant, 2011). 28 October, October, October, October, 2015

Exclusions/Misrecognitions Who is deemed capable of reason? 71% of researchers globally are men 29% women (UNESCO, 2012). Women less likely to be: Journal editors/cited in top-rated journals (Tight, 2008). Principal investigators (EC, 2011). On research boards Awarded large grants Awarded research prizes (Nikiforova, 2011). Keynote conference speakers (Schroeder et al., 2013). Are gender differences factored into research itself? (EU, 2013) 28 October, October, October, October, 2015

Summary: Knowledge… Important form of global capital. Reduced to its economic/ exchange value in neo-liberal economies. Scholarship shaped by market demands. Linked to performance management. Purports to be neutral/objective, but is invested, situated and exclusionary. Production/ custody processes overlap with social hierarchies. Productivity connected to predictability of research utility. Value indicators can be unstable, transitory, contingent and contextualised. 28 October, 2015

28 October, 2015 Making Alternativity Imaginable: Social Science Researchers To… Resist being co-opted by narrow research policy agendas. Inform policy with evidence, not vice versa. Challenge and expose increasing socio- economic inequalities/ exclusions. Re-invigorate knowledge production as a site of transformation and possibility. Act as Socratic ‘gadflies’ (Colley, 2013). Trouble neo-liberal realism. Transgress and re-signify. Re-work tired, stale categories/ vocabularies. Identify new optics for viewing social world. Imagine and research the future that you want to see.

28 October, 2015 Follow Up? Morley, L. (2014) Lost Leaders: Women in the Global Academy. In press, Higher Education Research and Development. Morley, L. (2014) Researching the Future: Closures and Culture Wars in the Knowledge Economy. In press, Critical Studies in Education CHEER