Target-setting, early-career academic identities and the measurement culture of UK higher education

ABSTRACT

Early-career academics are subject to a barrage of formal measurements when they secure a first academic post in a UK university. To support this process, guidance is provided by universities on what is measured, though this can lack disciplinary nuance. This article analyses the perceptions of a sample of social scientists of the process of target-setting during their academic probationary periods, showing that the perceived surveillance regime legitimates particular academic identities. I show how, for those who took part in this study, the currently instantiated competitive UK measurement culture can produce conformative subjects who frustrate institutional rhetoric.

KEYWORDS:

• academic identity
• measurement
• narrative
• performativity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In the UK, this process is known as academic probation and typically lasts from one to three years. It differs from the US sense of probation that applies to students who are under-performing.

2. I am grateful to a (deliberately unnamed) participant for seeing this in an earlier discussion of the findings long before I did.