Does relevance matter in academic policy research? A comment on Dredge

This section of the journal encourages discussion between several authors on a policy-related topic. The same question may, therefore, be addressed from different theoretical, cultural or spatial perspectives. Dialogues may be applied or highly abstract. The Dialogue in this issue starts with Dianne Dredge's contribution here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2014.990661

Dianne Dredge provides a thorough and well considered reminder about the importance of good communication between policy researchers and other actors with an interest in policy. I would like to take the discussion in a slightly different direction. Though Dredge lists types of research conducted by academics, she says relatively little about any distinctive contribution that might arise from that research being undertaken by academics. This means that the significance of the current pressure on, and state of, universities is rather underplayed.

Policy research is conducted by all kinds of bodies, not only universities; some of these are commercial concerns, some not. What is it that might distinguish an academic contribution, then? At one point, Dredge hints that academic research is distinguished by rigour and independence. The notion of independence is open to many interpretations, and Bourdieu (2003) is only one who has warned of the way that the idea can be used by academics to justify unreflectively supporting the status quo. But of course there are less contentious uses of the term, such as when research findings are not tailored to suit the wishes of a powerful body for economic or other gain. Good research must be independent in that sense. Yet such independence, along with rigour, should be the mark of good research conducted by any agency, not only universities; that is, these qualities do not mark out academic research from any other good quality research. Some might argue that while good research conducted by any agency must always be rigorous and independent, this is more likely to be achieved within a university setting, and certainly university research is more likely to be perceived as rigorous and independent. Let us take each element in turn.

As Dredge herself notes, contemporary universities have been subject for some time to the pressures associated with the commodification of knowledge and corporatisation. They are enjoined to be entrepreneurial, and indeed very many are. They compete for students, for prestige, and for research monies. In many parts of the world, universities have become increasingly efficient at ensuring their staff – including academic staff – are ‘on message’ and ‘delivering the goods’. The ensuing dangers to intellectual integrity are well-documented: for example, attempts by university and other authorities to muzzle or intimidate researchers who may endanger cosy relationships with powerful agencies of governance (Allen & Imrie, 2010), the development of what is arguably a kind of intellectual deceit exercised by producing one kind of output for the sponsor of research and another, allegedly more critical , one for an academic audience (Thomas, 2010), and the ever-present danger of fraud in research (Broad & Wade, 1985; Martin, 1992). None of these are new concerns, but no one can seriously claim that they are not more pressing than they have been for some time. Importantly, the pressures involved are increasingly widely understood outside universities and shape perceptions of academic policy researchers. The idea of the university as the most significant producer of bona fide knowledge may still have some credence (and financial value), but clear-eyed policy makers – whether in the public sector or outside it – have long realised that many academics have their price, albeit it that there must be some subtlety in asking them to deliver what is wanted (Goodstadt, 2005).

This is not to say that all academic policy researchers are mercenary; simply to point out that they operate in a similar environment to non-academic researchers, are subject to similar pressures, and, indeed, often compete for work with, or jointly bid for work with, non-academic consultancies. Dianne Dredge is surely right to suggest that academic policy researchers should communicate with those engaged in the policy process; her thought that good academic research is rigorous and in at least some senses independent does not invite challenge. But these are injunctions which one might also reasonably apply to policy research which aspires to be good when conducted outside the academy. What, then, might academic research bring as – dare one say it – its usp? Put another way, what is, or perhaps better could be, distinctive about a university and research undertaken by those within it?

There are, and have been, very many kinds of institutions called universities, and very many ideas about what universities should be (Holmwood, 2011; Rüegg, 2004). Dredge's essay begins with a reminder of one influential model of a university, namely von Humboldt's (often called the German model of the university). This was distinctive in at least three senses, first in its understanding of what knowledge and the accumulation of knowledge involved, which was in essence a belief in a universally valid rational scientific method as a privileged route to knowledge (MacIntyre, 1990); second, the way that knowledge-accumulation was linked to social and human progress, or excellence; and finally the idea that the university was essentially about discovering knowledge and teaching students how to set about this task – if they were rational researchers then they were well on the way to human excellence and to promoting social good (Charle, 2004). This vision of knowledge and its accumulation has long been challenged and, many would say, discredited. Dredge herself cites some of the ‘isms’ which are associated with this discrediting. In social science, it is now widely accepted that any research method necessarily draws on broader theoretical frameworks, and that these will have metaphysical dimensions, such as what constitutes causation, the ontological status of entities such as social classes, and what constitutes rationality in human behaviour (Massey & Meegan, 1985; Winch, 1958). Positions on these matters are part of wider ‘world-views’ with normative implications. It is only within such world-views that we can make any sense of notions of human excellence and social good, the other important aspect of von Humboldt's vision.

There are good reasons, then, for looking for an alternative to the nineteenth century idea that academic researchers produce value-free facts to inform policy and that universities teach the methods for garnering these facts. There are many possible alternative ways of thinking of universities , and in the remainder of this essay I do no more than set out one view, or perhaps more accurately, a family of views which suggests how a university – though not necessarily most actually-existing universities – might bring to policy research something different from non-university researchers.

If we think of ways of finding out about the world, and hence explanations of it, as embedded within essentially normative world-views then the university can become a place where wisdom, good judgement and good character is developed as an inseparable accompaniment of scholarship and research. Newman (1982, first published 1873) outlined a nineteenth century model for a teaching-based university along these lines; in the twentieth century, the University of Notre Dame shares Newman's Catholic framework, but has developed as an acclaimed research and teaching university within it, a community where ‘Catholic character must be woven into the fabric of the university', including its research (Grey, 1994, p. 114). This approach overlaps with those of diverse secular commentators , such as Aronowitz and Giroux (1991, p. 103) who speak of the need to reclaim the curriculum of higher education so that it is a ‘configuration of knowledge, social relations and values  … ’, or Sullivan and Roisin (2008, p. xv) who suggest that ‘Higher education contributes most to society and is most faithful to its deepest purposes when it seeks to use its considerable intellectual and cultural resources to prepare students for lives of significance and responsibility’.

Within this family of views of what a university might be, what distinctive contribution could university researchers make to policy research, particularly in relation to tourism, leisure and events? If researchers were based in institutions where there was an everyday awareness and reflection upon the broader frameworks within which research is conceptualised, academics could be regarded as especially well-suited to contributing to policy discussions where there is widespread questioning of fundamental ontological categories and moral precepts. In these kinds of areas, empirical research will have an especially close and dynamic relationship with broader theoretical and normative issues and researchers who are comfortable with the seamless nature of human learning, rather than simply being technically proficient (though that is also needed), offer something distinctive. Fields such as animal welfare, and genetics, are obviously such areas. Within tourism, leisure and events, there have been discussions of the ethics of mobilities (Bergmann & Sager, 2008) which begin to question the modern equating of freedom with travel, and studies of what tourism may or may not offer to indigenous communities, where post-colonial theory (for example) might provide a significant input into how policy issues could be framed. Like Dianne Dredge I am wary of too simplistic a concern for relevance in academic policy research. From the perspective I advocate, policy relevance is potentially a dangerous goal, unless the researchers are convinced of the rightness of the framework within which the policy issues and underlying analyses are couched. Of course, on many occasions, there will be such agreement. For example, much research on economic impacts of events is doubtless undertaken by researchers who have no difficulty with the normative picture of (so-called) ‘rational’ human behaviour which underlies neo-classical economics. The more sophisticated among them should be aware of these frameworks, and also sensitive to the possibility that their work may contribute to their development. One might hope that academic researchers – that is, researchers based in a university – would be among those who have a greater capacity and propensity to take these broader and deeper views of their work.

This would be the case because on the picture offered here, what an idealised university could, in principle, offer policy research would be proximity to continuous and well informed discussion about human excellence and how that might impact upon research agendas and approaches. So the claim is not that academic policy researchers are necessarily technically superior or more ethical than researchers in any other kind of agency. But academic researchers ideally can be part of a wider community in which disciplinary and policy-related research feeds into and is informed by wider considerations of what kind of human life and human communities should we want to help develop. This might not always make them more attractive contractors for policy makers putting research out to tender, or indeed other funding bodies increasingly concerned about ‘impact’, but it would be consistent with the idea of the university as something more than simply a fact-finding machine.

Unfortunately, as Dianne Dredge points out, and others have discussed at length (Collini, 2012), contemporary universities are moving further away from being this kind of institution. They are increasingly turning into technically specialised corporations willing to take on work for any client. These trends are pushed by strong politico-economic forces. But if they are to be reversed, and if there are to be any universities (and academic policy researchers) who can offer something distinctive to policy communities it will be because academics themselves show some understanding of what a radically new future for at least some universities might involve. At present this appears to be limited and in that respect Dianne Dredge's essay could be regarded as a missed opportunity.

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