Knowledge production and consumption in British academia

Both the production and consumption of knowledge in British academia have been transformed through changes in universities’ relationships with their staff and students. The introduction of tuition fees and the associated discourse around ‘value for money’ position students as making a personal investment intended primarily to contribute to economic rather than personal growth. The value of knowledge gained through higher education is, in this way, measured against graduates’ earnings and perceived usefulness to the economy.

Academics’ knowledge production is also subject to epistemological tensions. For example, increased pressure to win external funding may re-shape research agendas if priority is given to certain types of research likely to generate profit through commercial applications, patents, or spin-off projects. Even the language used to communicate institutional expectations about research to academics foregrounds certain aspects of knowledge production, obscuring its social aspects and disguising hierarchies of status and power that make good research possible. This chapter examines how language is used to promote an instrumental view of knowledge production, one that privileges its role in contributing to a strong economy at the expense of other purposes, such as the promotion of human flourishing or the creation of critical thinkers.