It's true that Glasgow University seems to be doing a particularly good job
of alienating everyone.
Best
Simon
On 27/03/2011 13:58, "Variant" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As appalling as they are, a quick glance at this weekend's Scottish papers
> screams otherwise:
>
> Machar says proposal to close course that inspired her Œbeggars belief
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/home-news/machar-says-proposal-to-close-
> course-that-inspired-her-beggars-belief-1.1092880
>
> Student sit-in after police eviction: celebrity visits, more protestors and an
> upgrade
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/home-news/student-sit-in-after-police-ev
> iction-celebrity-visits-more-protestors-and-an-upgrade-1.1092866
>
> The Senate is the senior academic body of Glasgow University
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/the-role-of-the-senate-1.10922
> 82
>
> University¹s Senate calls for delay to course cuts
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/university-s-senate-calls-for-
> delay-to-course-cuts-1.1092278
>
> Lecturers call for inquiry into sit-in removal
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/lecturers-call-for-inquiry-int
> o-sit-in-removal-1.1092237
>
> University to probe action against sit-in
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/university-to-probe-action-aga
> inst-sit-in-1.1092518
>
> Lecturers strike as pensions dispute intensifies
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/lecturers-strike-as-pensions-d
> ispute-intensifies-1.1092523
>
> Glasgow students call for principal to resign
> http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/news/education/glasgow-students-call-for-prin
> cipal-to-resign-1.1092780
>
> Best wishes,
> Leigh
>
>
>
>
> On 27 Mar 2011, at 15:00, Simon Biggs wrote:
>
>> I only read this article this morning, like everybody else, but it didn't
>> seem like news. The AHRC has been engaging these issues for many months,
>> even years.
>>
>> Some of the current research agenda predates the last election whilst some
>> has clearly been driven by new political realities. I am not an apologist
>> for the AHRC's apparent subservience to its political masters but I think,
>> mindful I may be trashed by some, the Observer piece is overstating things.
>>
>> Firstly, the AHRC has not been discussing anything called the "big society".
>> They would find the term hilarious, as we do. What it has been doing, like
>> the other research councils, is responding to the impact agenda (initiated
>> by the previous government) and recognising that the AHRC might make hay
>> where some other knowledge domains could struggle. The arts, in particular,
>> are traditionally very outward looking. In the arts audiences are at the
>> centre of our thinking and exchange through the knowledge economy is innate.
>> This is something that in other areas can seem abstract or even alien. The
>> AHRC have recognised this and are explicitly pursuing these opportunities.
>> It was not an accident that RCUK appointed the head of the AHRC to lead on
>> the impact agenda. That was prior to the last election.
>>
>> Secondly, there has been a relaxing, over the past year, in some of the more
>> instrumentalist directives being passed down from the Department for
>> Business, Innovation and Skills (responsible for HE and research). Mandleson
>> was a micromanager who wished to stamp his own preferences across the
>> sector, especially in research. Cable and Willetts are not much of a double
>> act and have buckets of blood on their hands, but they are actually more
>> hands off (although the bloodstains are showing).
>>
>> Thirdly, we should look at what the AHRC is prioritising, rather than solely
>> relying on the Observer for our information. The AHRC has four highlight
>> themes which articulate their priorities and encourage the sort of research
>> they want to see happening. These themes have been in the public domain for
>> many months. This doesn't mean that other research isn't funded. Funding is
>> decided by the Peer Review College and Peer Review Panels and these are
>> composed of the same academics who are applying for the funds. They
>> interpret the themes how they will, or choose to ignore them.
>>
>> The themes include "Care for the Future". This is possibly the closest of
>> the themes to the Big Society concept - except that if you visit the AHRC
>> site http://www.ahrc.ac.uk you see this isn't what it's about but, rather,
>> more conventional humanities research priorities such as conservation,
>> interpretation and heritage. That said, terms such as "trust" and
>> "philanthropy" appear in the texts. These could be seen to echo government
>> ideology. However, this also relates to concepts such as "connected
>> communities", which is a narrative with communitarian characteristics - not
>> a direction the current government is likely to want to go in.
>>
>> The second theme is "Digital Transformations", which seems a fantastic theme
>> and directly relevant to many members on this list. This theme ranges from
>> looking at how digital technology affects the way we do research and
>> understand things through to how the digital is transforming the world with
>> new communication systems and subsequent globalisation. Again, it allows
>> both the epistemological and ontological dimensions of the social to be
>> explored.
>>
>> The third theme is "Translating Cultures" which, to some degree, is a
>> hangover from the previous strategic focus of RCUK on internationalisation.
>> That was driven, in part, by governmental concern over cultural conflict as
>> evidenced, at its most extreme, in terrorist activity. From shortly after
>> 9/11 the research councils have been engaging these themes as strategically
>> important, as the governments of the day sought to understand what was going
>> on. The rhetoric of the "War on Terror" is now history, it's primary
>> evangelists gone from the world-stage. But the theme hangs on, morphing into
>> a broader engagement with issues around globalisation and potential
>> conflict. It needs to be unpacked.
>>
>> The last theme is "Science in Culture". To some degree the discussion on
>> CRUMB this month (as well as WDL) has been engaging this topic, seeking to
>> apprehend how scientific thought and methods can be disruptive, reconciled
>> or even exploited, in various humanistic intellectual domains. It could be
>> interpreted as instrumentalist but equally, like the first theme, as
>> engaging traditional concerns in the field, not out of scope of C.P. Snow's
>> famous observations.
>>
>> All of these themes engage what the AHRC is calling "Connected Communities"
>> and, again, I would suggest that this is generally intended in a
>> non-instrumental manner to mean an engagement with our collective and
>> individual ontologies as we and the world are transformed. We are living,
>> arguably, in a period of particularly rapid change, with tectonic shifts in
>> economic and cultural power not seen for perhaps centuries (as power rapidly
>> moves East). I understand all these themes within that framework.
>>
>> If one is paranoid then it would be possible to read all of the themes
>> described above as government meddling in academic freedom. I have some
>> sympathy with that view. But the government doesn't have that kind of reach
>> into academia. The universities that run the UK academic system are mostly
>> large and ancient institutions, slow moving strategic units and part of a
>> global structure of such institutions. The forces and agencies that act
>> through this system are too complex for governments to have too greater
>> affect, negative or otherwise. The various agendas of the research councils
>> largely derive from this context, not from government diktat, regardless of
>> what government might seek. Cable and Willetts would love to have the
>> influence the Observer grants them.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> On 27/03/2011 12:47, "Honor Harger" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I don't want to derail the current discussion,
>>> but today's news about the new priorities the UK
>>> Government have set the Arts and Humanities
>>> Research Council (AHRC) - who distribute research
>>> funding within UK Universities - does seem
>>> rather pertinent to many on the list.
>>>
>>> For those of you who haven't heard, the AHRC have
>>> been asked to commit substantial research funds
>>> into studying the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat
>>> Government's flagship policy idea, "The Big
>>> Society", in exchange for the ring-fencing of the
>>> AHRC budget.
>>>
>>> The Observer report on this story here: http://v.gd/haldane
>>>
>>> "The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
>>> will spend a "significant" amount of its funding
>>> on the prime minister's vision for the country,
>>> after a government "clarification" of the Haldane
>>> principle - a convention that for 90 years has
>>> protected the right of academics to decide where
>>> research funds should be spent. Under the revised
>>> principle, research bodies must work to the
>>> government's national objectives [...] It is
>>> claimed the AHRC was told that research into the
>>> "big society" was non-negotiable if it wished to
>>> maintain its funding at £100m a year."
>>>
>>> The erosion of the Haldane principle has stark
>>> implications for everyone who is involved in, or
>>> effected by, University research. If the Observer
>>> report is accurate, this is, in my view,
>>> transparently chilling, and it is no surprise
>>> that several commentators, and academics, have
>>> started darkly murmuring:
>>>
>>> "Who controls the past", ran the Party slogan,
>>> "controls the future: who controls the present
>>> controls the past."
>>>
>>> As many of you are in academia in the UK, and
>>> some of you are in receipt of AHRC funding, I
>>> wonder what your reaction to this is? Have your
>>> universities informed you of this news? Have
>>> their been any internal briefings?
>>>
>>> I'd be very curios to know.
>>>
>>> With all best wishes,
>>>
>>> Honor Harger
>>>
>>> PS. On a lighter note, there's some lovely,
>>> playful deconstructions of this very disturbing
>>> development, on Twitter right now. For those of
>>> you who have Twitter accounts, you might be
>>> interested in following this hashtag:
>>> #bigsocietyresearchproposals
>>>
>>> Here's some of the recent gems:
>>>
>>> '"A depraved taste for equality", de Tocqueville
>>> and the founding principles of the Big Society'
>>>
>>> "Big Society of the Spectacle: Guy Debord's
>>> influence on policymakers, politicians, and the
>>> public."
>>>
>>> "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe: The
>>> Tragedy of Uncontrolled Immigration in Fantasy
>>> Fiction
>>>
>>> "The Notorious B.I.G. Society: the influence of
>>> East Coast hip-hop culture on Conservative policy
>>> (1992-2011)"
>>> --
>>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>>
>>> honor harger
>>>
>>> present location: brighton, .uk
>>>
>>> email: [log in to unmask]
>>> sms: +44 7765834272
>>>
>>>
>>> -> w o r k
>>> director of lighthouse: http://www.lighthouse.org.uk
>>>
>>> -> b l o g
>>> particle decelerator: http://decelerator.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>> - > b l a g
>>> twitter: http://twitter.com/honorharger
>>>
>>> -> l i s t e n
>>> radio astronomy: http://www.radio-astronomy.net
>>>
>>> -> w e b
>>> bio: http://www.radioqualia.net/honor
>>>
>>
>>
>> Simon Biggs
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.elmcip.net/
>> http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>
>
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Simon Biggs
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http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
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