Reconfiguring Knowledge Production


Book Description

Governance of the public sciences has profoundly changed since World War II, especially the funding structures, autonomy, and accountability of public research organizations and universities, and the extent to which research is steered towards societal usefulness. This book examines these developments in several countries.




The New Production of Knowledge


Book Description

In this provocative and broad-ranging work, the authors argue that the ways in which knowledge - scientific, social and cultural - is produced are undergoing fundamental changes at the end of the twentieth century. They claim that these changes mark a distinct shift into a new mode of knowledge production which is replacing or reforming established institutions, disciplines, practices and policies. Identifying features of the new mode of knowledge production - reflexivity, transdisciplinarity, heterogeneity - the authors show how these features connect with the changing role of knowledge in social relations. While the knowledge produced by research and development in science and technology is accorded central concern, the




Reconfiguring Knowledge in Higher Education


Book Description

Knowledge is now central to national economic competitiveness and to socio-economic endeavours concerned with inequalities and social exclusion, and in this context higher education is recognized as a core sector of national policy and strategy. Yet the changing pressures, directions and practices in relation to knowledge pose many challenges for higher education itself. How can and how should research and study programs within higher education align with wider knowledge dynamics? How can higher education prepare students in professional fields for different kinds of knowledge-intensive work practices? How can short term economic objectives for higher education be aligned with other kinds of knowledge objectives that have characterized universities and colleges, and with the intensified impact of global rankings? This book takes as its focus the core interest of higher education in knowledge, and takes as its object of inquiry the kinds of reconfiguration of knowledge evident in national policies and governance; and in the redevelopment and practices of a range of professional and academic study programs in higher education institutions in Norway and Australia. From these detailed accounts, the book demonstrates the complexity of knowledge as an object of policy and practice; the competing logics that may be evident within and between study programs and policies; and the different kinds of agents and drivers that are part of knowledge reconfiguration in higher education and that need further attention going forward.




Reconfiguring Truth


Book Description

This refreshingly original book links the postmodern critique of notions such as 'reality' and 'truth' with approaches to knowledge found in science and technology studies (STS), a field also discontent with traditional epistemology. Exploring STS approaches to knowledge, such as actor-network theory, Ward forges a path through the impasse of the modernism vs. postmodernism debate. Reconfiguring Knowledge is an important work for social scientists and theorists, philosophers, historians, and scholars of science and technology.




Knowledge Production in European Universities


Book Description

The book studies transformations of European universities in the context of globalization and Europeanization, the questioning of the foundations of the «Golden Age» of the Keynesian welfare state, public sector reforms, demographic changes, the massification and diversification of higher education, and the emergence of knowledge economies. Such phenomena as academic entrepreneurialism and diversified channels of knowledge exchange in European universities are linked to transformations of the state and changes in public sector services. The first, contextual part of the book studies the changing state/university relationships, and the second, empirically-informed part draws from several recent large-scale comparative European research projects.




From Loose to Tight Management


Book Description

Elke Weyer sheds light on the question why, after more than three decades of higher education reforms in some countries, it is still not clear whether the reforms have achieved their stated goals, i.e., to create autonomous universities that meet political expectations. By back-casting real-life decision-making processes, the author reconstructs how different types of actors influenced the academic governance of higher education institutions in the context of these reforms. This approach highlights how numerous changes in governance and organisation affect the relationships between actors and how they promote their interests.




Academic Governance


Book Description

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic life. This book’s starting point is that there are three main shaping forces that govern academia – intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions and research policy. Bringing these three levels together into a framework, this book examines how academia is governed, both formally and informally, bridging the different aspects of governing knowledge networks through a large multi-country study. Author Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the broad disciplinary areas of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, to demonstrate the analytical framework’s application. The book also offers some needed directions on what policy should and can do, providing a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the perspective of academics on the frontline.




Nanotechnology, Governance, and Knowledge Networks in the Global South


Book Description

The seemingly unlimited technological potential of nanotechnology brings with it new practices of governance, networking, and exercising power and agency. Focusing on scholars in the Global South, this text covers nanotechnology discourses, imaginaries, and materialities as they circulate and interact within governance knowledge networks. Rather than adapt their actions to existing governance mechanisms and science, technology, and innovation policy, scientists use the imaginary of nanotechnology to create new symbolic and material incentives, thus shaping its governance. By tracing the constantly shifting asymmetries of knowledge and power, the book offers fresh insights into the dynamics of knowledge networks.




Performing the Digital


Book Description

How is performativity shaped by digital technologies - and how do performative practices reflect and alter techno-social formations? "Performing the Digital" explores, maps and theorizes the conditions and effects of performativity in digital cultures. Bringing together scholars from performance studies, media theory, sociology and organization studies as well as practitioners of performance, the contributions engage with the implications of digital media and its networked infrastructures for modulations of affect and the body, for performing cities, protest, organization and markets, and for the performativity of critique. With contributions by Marie-Luise Angerer, Timon Beyes, Scott deLahunta and Florian Jenett, Margarete Jahrmann, Susan Kozel, Ann-Christina Lange, Oliver Leistert, Martina Leeker, Jon McKenzie, Sigrid Merx, Melanie Mohren and Bernhard Herbordt, Imanuel Schipper and Jens Schröter.




Beyond Bibliometrics


Book Description

A comprehensive, state-of-the-art examination of the changing ways we measure scholarly performance and research impact. Bibliometrics has moved well beyond the mere tracking of bibliographic citations. The web enables new ways to measure scholarly productivity and impact, making available tools and data that can reveal patterns of intellectual activity and impact that were previously invisible: mentions, acknowledgments, endorsements, downloads, recommendations, blog posts, tweets. This book describes recent theoretical and practical advances in metrics-based research, examining a variety of alternative metrics—or “altmetrics”—while also considering the ethical and cultural consequences of relying on metrics to assess the quality of scholarship. Once the domain of information scientists and mathematicians, bibliometrics is now a fast-growing, multidisciplinary field that ranges from webometrics to scientometrics to influmetrics. The contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics discuss the changing environment of scholarly publishing, the effects of open access and Web 2.0 on genres of discourse, novel analytic methods, and the emergence of next-generation metrics in a performance-conscious age. Contributors Mayur Amin, Judit Bar-Ilan, Johann Bauer, Lutz Bornmann, Benjamin F. Bowman, Kevin W. Boyack, Blaise Cronin, Ronald Day, Nicola De Bellis, Jonathan Furner, Yves Gingras, Stefanie Haustein, Edwin Henneken, Peter A. Hook, Judith Kamalski, Richard Klavans, Kayvan Kousha, Michael Kurtz, Mark Largent, Julia Lane, Vincent Larivière, Loet Leydesdorff, Werner Marx, Katherine W. McCain, Margit Palzenberger, Andrew Plume, Jason Priem, Rebecca Rosen, Hermann Schier, Hadas Shema, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, Daril Vilhena, Jevin West, Paul Wouters