Much of the new managerialism in academic departments has its origins in asymmetrical power networks outside a Department, and Deans/Heads treat the ERA/REF/ PBRF exercises as extremely important because they, and their units, are punished for poor performance and rewarded for excellence. That’s the educational marketplace that neoliberalism encourages.  We are talking about symbolic or fiscal targets, with the standards set way too high- that is the point perhaps, to aspire and to weed out units or individuals for not meeting them. Heads/Deans are pushed by central university managers, and senior management, to operate in this way. Just like in a  corporation.

Resistance inside Departments to ‘targets’ of this nature  is muted because a) a lot of academics are ambitious, and  I think they quite like accruing publications and grants that are captured in research assessments as well as in annual performance reviews b) most of us outside the small fraction tenured in North America have no or minimal job security, and some  lack regular jobs, so we have to toe the line more or less.

 

I agree with Jenny Pickerill and others– most neoliberal university performance targets are impossible to meet if you are a real human being (but every Faculty usually has somebody that does meet them, touted as an example to everybody else because of their massive ARC/NSF/ESRC grant performance and string of personal achievements…).  And yet we survive, and not everybody is sacked despite falling short of invented targets.

Staff should still be free to negotiate what they do , in a supportive environment, recognising that there are limits to what we can actually do ; for me, this should involve teaching sufficiently, and sufficiently well, so that that students value you;  assisting others immediately around you, or outside the academic arena; and contributing to knowledge, in the classic academic sense. The latter cannot be constrained to grant performance and writing in certain ranked outlets, but could include these. A more reasonable ‘floor’ for performance would assist and motivate everybody. Eg recognition that some research just is not fundable but is no less valid. Some inspired writing need not be behind a firewall in a highly starred journal.  When I was at LSE and Arizona there was gentle support and advice to junior faculty like me that were never going to fit every performance criteria  – this is the sort of thing that actually encourages pride [and performance].

 

It would be fantastic if Departments voted to remove themselves from research assessments in a boycott operation (in UK, NZ, AU presumably)  -  but they would then have to demonstrate their worth to the university in other ways though, by brilliant  and lucrative activity (let us call it “slow science” as a posting does). I have no problem with doing the latter. The problem is the system, not the aspiration of most of those subjected to it.

As Kate on https://musicfordeckchairs.wordpress.com/tag/professor-stefan-grimm/ says “ This is why for me it isn’t about only one place, one terrible loss, but it’s really about the institutional thinking and the individual ‘going along with’ that together create the conditions under which productivity is narrowed to particular kinds of outputs, particular kinds of fundraising success only.”

I do suffer for going along with the values learned earlier in life, which can be interpreted as ‘not going along with’ in aa neoliberal university, but it is a small price to pay for keeping professional pride and a sense of justice intact.  The Winnower article I posted on what radical academia really means has been read by 2200 people in a  month- thanks.

If there is no panel at AAG on these topics, happy to cooperate or organise but I am not sure the US is the right context for this particular debate?

S