The theory of academic capitalism was originally described by Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie (1997) and further developed with the collaboration of Gary Rhoades (2004). The authors proposed the theory to explain how universities have transformed themselves to become more closely connected to the economy. They explain the ways in which universities have become integrated into the ‘knowledge society’ or ‘information society’ by acquiring new roles and responsibilities. Its proponents do not conclude simply that the university has become “corporatized”. Instead, they identify “groups of actors – faculty, students, administrators, and academic professionals – as using a variety of state resources to create new circuits of knowledge that link higher education institutions to the new economy” (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004, p.1). The result is a “shift from a public good knowledge/learning regime to an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime” (p.8). And although the latter has not completely replaced the former, and the two regimes coexist (p. 29), the boundaries between the public and private sector are increasingly blurred.
In this view, universities are not defencelessly being affected by external forces; they are actively seeking those connections with the economy. Different groups of actors – including managers, faculty and students – within the university have important roles in the transformations taking place, which have an impact on the academic profession and faculty employment. These actors make investments and develop marketing and consumption behaviours that constitute the “academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime”, whose most significant characteristics are: “its global scope, its treatment of knowledge as raw material, its non-Fordist production processes, and its need for educated workers and consumers” (p.16).
For Slaughter and Rhoades, the dominance and importance of the academic profession is put into question in today’s universities. Academics are no longer the most important members of staff in universities full of managers dedicated to technology transfer, information producing and processing, quality control, and so forth. As Rhoades (1998) points
out, academics are increasingly managed professionals. The existence of managerial staff and offices shows:
the internal embeddedness of profit-oriented activities as a point of reorganization (and new investment) by higher education institutions to develop their own capacity (and to hire new types of professionals) to market products created by faculty and develop commercializable products outside of (though connected to) conventional academic structures and individual faculty members (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004, p.11).
In the academic capitalism regime, knowledge privatisation and profit are valued more than the public’s good. There is “little separation between science and commercial activity” and discoveries are valued when they produce “high-technology products for a knowledge economy” (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004, p. 29). It becomes evident that academic capitalism and quality assurance share common views of higher education. Therefore, the mechanisms that facilitate the connections of the university with the market also carry the elements of quality assurance and insert them in universities at the same time that the academic capitalist regime is developed. By taking note of these mechanisms it is also possible to understand the mechanisms that promote quality assurance, as they are embedded in the same fabric.
In short, following the theory of academic capitalism, universities become ‘marketised’ through the development of the following characteristics:
“New circuits of knowledge that link state agencies, corporations and universities in entrepreneurial research endeavours are developed. New funding streams support these knowledge constellations and interstitial organizations emerge to facilitate the new knowledge circuits. Intermediating networks between public, non-profit and private sectors are initiated by actors from the various sectors to stabilize the new circuits of knowledge and organizations that facilitate entrepreneurial activity on the part of universities. At the same time, universities build extended managerial capacity that enables them to function as economic actors. Narratives, discourses and social
technologies that justify and normalize these changes are developed, elaborated and
articulated by all the players, and deployed via social technologies” (Slaughter & Cantwell, 2012, pp.587-588).
Quality assurance concepts and structures can be traced in each of the above characteristics. In the following paragraphs I will discuss each one of them and their link to quality assurance and practices closely associated to it.
Abundant literature, encompassing academic publications as well as reports, manuals and conferences, constitute the new circuits of knowledge. These are selectively promoted through several components of the Bologna Process, in the case of Europe, which has included training and generation of awareness among groups of academics in different countries of the
EHEA and abroad. The actors involved have developed a common language and understanding. Details on how to develop quality assurance practices are shared, and quantitative data are provided to support the demands for universities to adopt these practices. “Successful cases” prove the points and “best practices” are used as guidelines. This kind of literature feeds the policies that promote academic capitalism44.
Interstitial organizations are those that emerge within existing areas of the
university, they use and spread the narratives and discourses of competitiveness, and promote the commercialisation of research. They create new careers and rewards (pp.591-592). One example of an interstitial organizations is the technology transfer office, now introduced as a necessary addition in many universities. Accreditation agencies can also be classified as interstitial organizations for their role in directing universities towards adopting competitive behaviours and the commercialization of research. They have also created – and sustain – the career of quality experts and generate reward systems to actively encourage academic performance that links universities to the market through research, or that contributes to positioning the university in the student market, and the students in the labour market.
For Slaughter and Cantwell intermediating networks promote relations between universities and other sectors, and are mostly comprised of “business elites, middle to high ranking government officials, and/or professionals with advanced degrees. They usually see advantage from rearranging the traditional, distinct sectors of state, non-profits and for-profits to create new opportunities configured in a neoliberal frame” (2012, p.589; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). The Bologna Process constitutes, par excellence, a transnational intermediating network that links governments, corporations and academics in Europe and abroad in order to facilitate entrepreneurial initiatives.
Slaughter and Cantwell describe the existence of narratives on human capital (stronger in the U.S.), competitiveness, and the neoliberal market, circulating among intermediating networks, universities and policy groups. These narratives remain strong even if there is week evidence to sustain what they claim. One good example presented by Slaughter and Cantwell is the issue of patents. As they explain, “revenues for patents are represented as contributing substantially to university general funds, and successful innovations based on academic discoveries are presented as an enticement for industry to contribute more funding to academic R&D. However, patents have not provided substantial revenue streams for most
44 Michael Power coincides with Slaughter when he proposes the concept of “networks of knowledge”,
which he identifies as “newly powerful non-state global carriers of knowledge, consisting of an academic clergy, consultants, professional associations, and related meta-organizations” (2010, p. 190).
universities, and industry contributions to academic R&D have fallen off” (2012, p.596)45. Indeed, only a very small group of universities in the United States have seen earnings from patents and none have been able to fund a significant part of their research expenditure with licensing income, many have even registered negative earnings (p.597). The data also shows that the greatest funding for this technology research comes from public sources. According to the authors, in 2012 “the federal government account[ed] for about 63% of academic R&D, and institutions about 19%. At its peak, industry contributed 7–8% of funding for academic R&D, and currently is down to about 3–5%” (p.597). The failure to make money from patents is also true in Great Britain, where it is also a fact that only a very small number of universities are obtaining considerable income from commercialising intellectual property rights (Krücken & Meier, 2006, p. 251). Perhaps if one wants to look for the real beneficiaries of this trend, it is only necessary to point at the new managers and staff of the technology transfer offices, whose job market has expanded46. The narratives skip all information that disproves what they promote and portray universities that do not follow the trend as old-fashioned, isolated, elitist, slow-changing or change-averse institutions that need to be pressed and forced to “catch- up”47.
Academic capitalism’s fostering of competitiveness in higher education has several effects, according to the authors. One of them is the uneven development of institutions that are already well-positioned over those who are not, of fields of knowledge that can easily connect to the market over those that do not, and of faculty salaries of those academics willing to follow the line over those who are not (Slaughter & Cantwell, 2012, pp.601-602). This is where social technologies play an important part. In the shape of quality assurance processes – evaluation and accreditation – they encourage individuals to accept competition and funding inequalities. In the shape of rankings, they encourage individuals to focus on the aspects that enhance competitiveness.
45 R&D stands for research and development.
46 At least in relation to that of traditional academics (Shore, 2010, p.27).
47 About German universities appearing in contemporary political discourse as old-fashioned, sluggish,