The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing institutional and academic norms in UK higher education

Abstract

This article argues that UK universities are at risk from a process of ‘hollowing out’ – that is, of becoming institutions with no distinctive social role and no ethical raison d'etre – and that this is a process which undermines the possibilities for meaningful institutional and academic identities. It begins with a condensed, and necessarily partial, review of recent UK higher education policy trends to indicate the historical context and direction of change and to highlight the growing separation of management and academic agendas and the linked rise in gloss and spin compared to academic substance. In the remainder of this article we focus on the normative dimension of these changes and unpack their implications for the nature of the university and of academic work. In so doing, we illustrate the breadth and depth of the threat posed by ‘hollowed-out’ universities, indicate alternative, more positive currents and call for a ‘re-valuation’ of the UK university.

Keywords:

• higher education
• academic identities
• academic work
• marketisation
• commodification
• values and ethics

Notes

1. The Times Higher is a weekly publication, initially part of the Times Newspaper Group, which has been reporting on UK HE news since 1971. Originally called the Times Higher Education Supplement, it was renamed Times Higher Education in 2008.

2. For the full account of methodology and trends see Gewirtz and Cribb (2013).

3. A national system for assessing and ranking the quality of research in HEIs by subject area, the results of which are used to determine the allocation of government research funding to institutions and departments.

4. It is notable that exactly the same threats have come to the fore as a result of the 2010 reforms which continue the same explicit emphasis on STEM subjects whilst withdrawing teaching funds from the humanities and social sciences.

5. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

6. Research excellence framework.

7. It should be noted that marketisation is more pronounced in England and Wales than in Scotland, where tuition fees for home students were abolished in 2000, and Northern Ireland, where the fees are lower than in England and Wales. Nevertheless, Scottish and Northern Irish students joined the 2010 protests, expressing fears about impending cuts and the possible repercussions of the English and Welsh reforms for universities and students in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Cook, 2010; Belfast Telegraph, 2010).

8. The most obvious omission from his list, at least in the UK context, is the heritage of the polytechnic sector.

9. For example, alongside their traditional research and teaching functions, there has been a growing expectation for universities to engage in activities relating to knowledge transfer, innovation and economic development, social inclusion, social cohesion, urban regeneration and community development.

10. As Henkel (2000, pp. 160, 187) puts it, in the contemporary university, ‘[a]dvancement is a matter of acquiring a public identity, sustaining it and enhancing it’.

11. This feeling is arguably reinforced by what Sabri (2010, p. 201) describes as the growing absence of the figure of the academic from HE policy discourse and the discursive remaking of academics as generic ‘practitioners’.

12. That is, top-rated in the RAE/REF.