“Management scholars have heard these arguments before … Academic research on business is a self-aggrandising exercise by academics, for academics, that results in little practical or relevant insight for today’s managers …” (more)
[Brian Anderson, FT.com, 17 April]
“… a revolutionary proposal to fix ‘the crisis of irrelevance’ that today’s business schools are facing. Business school teachers should teach business. What an extraordinary idea! Apparently academics at business schools now spend a lot of their time doing research for academic journals that is of little practical relevance and that nobody even reads …” (more)
[Steve Denning, Forbes, 17 April]
“I met one of my colleagues on the stairs just before Christmas and he just turned to me and said ‘I hate this f***ing job!’ Of course, he didn’t mean all of it …” (more)
[educationandstuff, 7 January]
“A large part of science policy concerns funding priorities: how to strategically employ limited resources to ensure the long-term health and productivity of the research sector. Science and technology aren’t always predictable – things change, the frontiers advance, and there is a great need for any system to be adaptable and responsive …” (more)
[Aoife McLysaght, Science Calling!, 30 November]
“Across the English-speaking world a storm of words has been written about the apparently terminal decline in academic values and standards in today’s colleges and universities. Many observers argue that the intrinsic worth of higher education is being subordinated to a destructively exclusive focus on business objectives and the needs of the free market economy. This is happening across the globe and it appears to be an irreversible trend. This provocative and timely book has two aims. The first is to report on the worldwide coverage of the collapse of academic values in higher education, and to explain why that collapse is a social and cultural catastrophe, not just in the USA and the UK, but also in Australia, Germany, France and elsewhere. The second is to show the relevance of this reality within the Irish context. Bearing witness to her direct experience of the corporate university as it currently operates in Ireland, the author suggests that it may be too late to prevent a similar level of academic bankruptcy …” (more)
[Amazon, November]
“Deputy Jonathan O’Brien asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will consider implementing a review of the type of research output by third level lecturers; if he will consider introducing changes to the existing legislation that would mean that university staff would teach a set number of hours, unless they have a full-time research schedule, which is signed off by a high level in-house committee. [44980/12]
“Minister for Education and Skills (Deputy Ruairí Quinn): The management of staff and the allocation of their teaching hours is a matter for each university. The duties of academic staff include teaching; research; administration; engagement and scholarly activity. The balance of activities undertaken by each academic may vary as agreed by management in order to ensure fulfilment of their total work requirement. All universities have developed or are developing workload allocation models which are designed to ensure an equitable and transparent distribution of workloads while aiding better decision making on planning and resource allocation.”
“John Kelly makes a plea for more funding for engineering research in the IT recently and I imagine that the ‘basic researchers’ will be quick out of the blocks to put him in his place. Prof Brian Lucey, of Trinity, was quick to reply but I couldn’t quite follow his argument …” (more)
[educationandstuff, 3 October]
“Another day another paean to applied science … well, a thinly disguised call for more money to go to engineering. Coz, they make stuff y’know, not like basic researchers or heaven help us AHSS (arts, humanities and social sciences) dabblers …” (more)
[Brian M Lucey, 2 October]
“The results of the National Student Survey (NSS) and the Times University Guide 2013, both published within in the last couple of days, have made one thing clear. The best universities for research are not always the best universities for teaching quality …” (more)
[The History Woman's Blog, 30 September]
“Deputy Kevin Humphreys asked the Minister for Education and Skills the role being played in the educational system here with the development of Chinese Confucius Institutions; the funding streams available to universities and colleges through these institutions; if he will explain the detail, role, purpose and benefit of the Confucius Institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter …” (more)
[Dáil Éireann, 15 May]
“Paul Mooney has a long op-ed on higher education in today’s Irish Times. Mooney taught at DCU and was president of NCI. That experience colours his assessment and recommendations. As I have argued time and again, some universities should focus on research and the academic side of education while other universities should focus on the more vocational end of third-level education …” (more)
[Richard Tol, Irish Economy, 20 March]
“Over the last number of years the publication of the times higher education University rankings has prompted a veritable orgies of introspection amongst Irish higher education analysts and participants. Once again the news is not great …” (more)
[Brian M Lucey, 16 March]
“An interesting email exchange yesterday evening led me to write this post in the hope of generating a bit of crowd sourcing. The issue at hand concerns the vexed question of the etymology and original meaning of the word ‘research’ (specifically in the context of scholarly enquiry) …” (more)
[In the Dark, 8 March]
“… Getting a paper published is always a pleasant experience no matter how often one hits the mark. Different academics have different approaches: the very best in the field, people like Rene Stulz publish lots and in very high quality journals. I tend to publish lots but in lower quality but still decent journals …” (more)
[Brian M Lucey, 7 March]
“It is a truth universally acknowledged: within academia, research has higher status than teaching. The question is, why? High status work is generally well paid work, and vice versa. Wages are determined by market forces, so supply and demand is the first place to look for an explanation for the high status of research …” (more)
[Frances Woolley, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, 26 February]
“Those working in universities regularly come up against the question whether it is possible to balance teaching and research so that both are valued and neither undermines the other …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 27 December]
“This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford reportedly announced that computer games could cause dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information. But this comes from the opening of a new wing of an expensive boarding school, not an academic conference …” (more)
[Ben Goldacre, Guardian, 21 October]
“Research remains male-dominated and the equality guidelines proposed for the REF don’t go far enough. The cards have long been stacked against women in the academy. Despite the academic achievements of women and repeated claims of the ‘feminisation’ of our universities, just 19% of professors are female and women are far less likely to be deemed ‘research active’ …” (more)
[Carole Leathwood, Times Higher Education, 20 October]
“One of the points about science funding I’ve tried to make over the years (we have been blogging a long time, haven’t we?) is that the overheads and indirect costs associated with federal grants drive a lot of university decisions – there’s a lot of money there. But this funding also has significant macroeconomic effects, especially in research-heavy states like Massachusetts …” (more)
[Mike the Mad Biologist, 15 August]
“As I have mentioned frequently in this blog, this is an age of insecurity in higher education. Faculty are unsure of where the academy is going and are unsettled by today’s odd mixture of public hostility and public indifference; funding is becoming scarcer while its sources are becoming less clear by the day …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 18 July]
