Co-creating policy knowledge

One of the aims of this journal is to influence and challenge policymaking in higher education by publishing high quality original research and analysis which explores the implications of findings for the development and implementation of policy. This is challenging enough for an international, peer-reviewed academic journal, but especially so for one that encourages in-depth accounts which are significantly longer than the standard journal article.

Discussions of impact often revolve around the format and mode of communication and the translation of academic discourse into more popular modes such as summaries, blogs, podcasts and opinion pieces that might be more likely to be picked up by policymakers than academic manuscripts. Valuable though this may be, a more profound and comprehensive approach would be to reconsider the interactions between academic research/ers and policymakers (broadly conceived to include institutional, sectoral, national and international actors) and how policy knowledge can be co-created through these.

It may be productive to consider this issue through the prism of university engagement and knowledge exchange and the longer-term relationships and collaborations that academics and researchers can have with the policy community. In the past, universities have had a tendency to promote an ‘expert’ model that prizes academic, and especially scientific, knowledge above other forms of understanding and learning, particularly those in professional disciplines, which are often devalued, and even dismissed by academia. Applied research which addresses problems and issues that face policymakers is too often not regarded as ‘real’ research. Despite calls to consider all talents (Boyer 1990; VSNU, NFU, KNAW 2019), ‘expert’ research continues to dominate the career and reward structure of universities, in particular, research funding, peer-reviewed publications and patents.

On the other hand, many policymakers are looking for an evidence-base for solutions to problems they and society face. They are often clamouring (silently) for help and some would welcome new and radical thinking, but ‘they are not super-interested in deep empirical explanations of why they are wrong’ (McMurtrie 2014). The ability to understand the policy challenges and the exigencies of making and implementing policy – combined with academic expertise – is a stronger basis for exercising influence and authority and expanding the ‘Overton window’ of political viability (Mackinac Centre 2019).

These contrasting perspectives of ‘expert’ and ‘applied’ research can hamper constructive dialogue and collaboration between universities and communities, government, businesses and non-profit organisations (Firth and Nyland 2020). The elitist approach to knowledge has tended to be further distorted by the rhetoric and reality of marketisation and reputation-building into a transactional mode of knowledge exchange which regards knowledge as an asset to be transmitted, translated and even commercialised. This has also generated expectations for individual academic researchers to engage with stakeholders in particular ways in order to achieve ‘impact’ and exerts pressure on them to produce tangible outputs, in the form of income, markers of reputation and other outcomes regarded as ‘valuable’ by many universities. In the higher education market, knowledge exchange and engagement – the ‘third mission’ of universities after teaching and research – has been redefined as the creation of assets that can be capitalised, commercialised and traded (Hughes and Kitson 2012).

Universities’ role in knowledge exchange has gained attention in recent years, being the subject of several reports and academic studies (for example, Grau et al. 2017; EUA 2021). Several of these have emphasised the importance of universities and academic researchers listening to and learning from their communities rather than talking to, or at, them. Rather than knowledge transmission or exchange, research translation and commercialisation, these perspectives highlight the importance of place and universities being embedded in their surrounding communities, as well as in their national and global networks. ‘Knowledge circulation’ might be a better way of understanding the ‘permeable’ university’s relationship with society and the engaged academic’s collaborations and partnerships.

Thinking about this third mission from these perspectives could help universities to value again a broader range of purposeful and ethical engagement policies and activities. It could help them to re-engage with their local regions as stewards of place, and to act again as effective civic institutions. It could provide new perspectives on the civic role of universities, moving beyond the confines of existing knowledge exchange and engagement activities to more equitable and reciprocal relationships with society (University of Lincoln 2019). The Covid-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to reflect on what engagement means and how to best facilitate it, highlighting the importance of building genuine and trusting relationships with external organisations. Fostering the right university culture, systems and structures, supported by clearer strategic direction, prioritising and investment within universities could strengthen and promote more socially-purposeful and collaborative engagements. External stakeholders offer important insights that university communities could learn and benefit from, in achieving their strategic priorities and goals. Hence, the importance of two-way knowledge exchange and knowledge co-creation to promote mutuality and reciprocal, accountable and impactful partnerships between universities and society.

The implications of this for academic authors – and journals such as this one – wishing to influence policymaking go far beyond the forms in which research is communicated to policy makers. It starts with a genuine and equal exchange of knowledge drawn from research, but also from the practical implementation of policies and the systematic evaluation of their effects, over time and in all their complexity. It suggests academic researchers developing long-term relationships with policymakers, and the policy community more widely, in order to understand each other’s priorities, build trust and enhance receptiveness to rigorous analysis, research relevance and the use of evidence to inform policy.

The Editorial Team and the Society for Research into Higher Education – the owners of this journal – are continuing to think through the implications of these ideas for the operation of the journal. This will lead to changes, for example, in the constitution and purpose of the Editorial Board and to the organisation of events which bring together academic researchers and policymakers to discuss issues and recommendations raised in recent volumes of the journal.

In this issue, Edward Choi, Philip Altbach and Mathew Allen ask whether family-owned or -managed higher education institutions are an important component of higher education that needs further investigation. They explore their special organisational character, shaped by the distinctive managerial agency of a kinship group and the norms rooted in academia. Focussing on three countries, they shed light on the varied environmental factors that threaten or encourage the continuity of these organisations and conclude by discussing the sustainability of the family-based leadership model and the implications of national policy on their persistence.

The policy framing of international student mobility in the Nordic countries is the focus of the article by Mari Elken, Elisabeth Hovdhaugen and Jannecke Wiers-Jenssen. This has traditionally been characterised by cultural cooperation and egalitarian values. However, in the last 20 years, these countries have diverged in how international student mobility is framed. In both Denmark and Finland, economic justifications have become prominent, although featuring somewhat different ambitions and concerns. In Sweden and Norway, the framing is still predominantly educational. The article challenges the assumption of a uniform Nordic region, and provides a critical exploration of how justifications for international student mobility include important national translations.

How universities are addressing the United Nation’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is addressed in the article by Xi Hong, Angel Calderon and Hamish Coates. They report research into university engagement with, and contributions to, the SDGs, including what has happened and been documented so far, and what plans university leaders have for future engagement. They conclude that contributions vary across, and are fragmented within, universities and they are not resourced or reported in systematic ways. They call for a much broader research agenda in this area that focuses not only on specific substantive issues but which looks broadly across a suite of countries, universities, evidence and issues and articulates a comprehensive view on what has been achieved as well as areas for development.

In their article, Yuan Gao and Jin Liu investigate the achievements, weaknesses and vulnerabilities of higher education internationalisation, which the COVID-19 pandemic may have intensified. They provide a critical reflection on the field’s evolution and the prospects for its future directions from experts’ perspectives. Interviews with 20 leading international scholars confirmed the global field’s dynamism and openness, but also the urgent need for policy innovation at the regional, national and institutional levels in response to the changing global field in the post-pandemic era. They also stressed the significance of the cultural dimension, through which higher education internationalisation can escape the trap of capitalist logic and address its shortcomings to achieve sustainable prosperity.

In the final article, Betül Yarar and Yasemin Karakaşoğlu investigate the integration into German universities of scholars exiled from autocratic regimes and countries at war, due to continuing attacks on academic-scientific values and institutions in those nations. They particularly focus on the experiences of scholars who were provided with either temporary positions or scholarships at universities or research institutes in Germany by academic humanitarian actors in order to continue their academic work in safety. Analysing these exiled scholars’ narratives on their academic experiences in that country, the paper concludes that, despite the aim of academic humanitarian actors to integrate them into universities, the unintentional result is their ‘inclusive-exclusion’ due to conflicting social forces (re)producing epistemic and dispositional hierarchies that exist in German higher education.

Appendix

Peter Noonan (13 April 1955 to 23 April 2022), Editorial Board Member 2018-2022: a eulogy

On a gusty late autumn mid-afternoon around 2006, Peter Noonan came to visit me at the Australian Council for Educational Research to ask what policy-relevant concepts and data might be marshalled to design a new approach to quality and regulation for Australian vocational education. We talked about options, risks, contexts and opportunities, which then grew through a series of national development projects into a suite of quality indicators and data collections for Australia’s vocational education. Our collaboration continued through related design of a standard-based system for regulating Australian higher education, the development of underpinning indicators and metrics, and broader international innovation work. Peter was an inspiration to me, as he was to many, and it was sad to hear of his death in April 2022. Peter was one of the few people who could see beyond their role, country or sector, and who had the acumen, imagination, conviction and networks to design large education transformations and bring them to life. An education leader who could link ideas with politics and practice. Noonan served on the Editorial Board of Policy Reviews for four years, generously sharing his insights and energy. Vale Peter!

Hamish Coates, Consulting Editor, Policy Reviews in Higher Education.