Economic calculation, market incentives and academic identity: breaking the research/teaching dualism?
This article argues that as institutions, universities are being recast in policy discourse as serving particular external agendas shaped by economic calculation and market incentives. The result has been that a wedge has been driven between research and teaching, and that both are mis-described in utilitarian terms as serving the market and 'employability'. The article makes the case for more careful descriptions of the purposes of research and education based on the unity of academic identity and the value of intellectual enquiry. Such a model has implications for the organisation, for universities, and for their broader civic functions.