ABSTRACT
The shifting landscape of higher education is not without significance for the
positioning and role of academics within society. To meet the funding crisis, academics
are encouraged and incentivized to emerge, in some cases kicking and screaming, from
the closet, or ivory towers, of the university to engage with the wider world. Critics of
the changing character of the academic’s work and contribution – sometimes associated
with so-called Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994) – have cautioned
that closer collaboration with the private sector indirectly fetters and compromises the
distinctiveness and contribution of their role as economically independent producers
of knowledge (Grey, 2001). There is a related fear that academics will hesitate to
pursue their research or speak out (e.g. on social and environmental issues) whenever
the exercise of ‘academic freedom’ could discredit their standing as experts and/or
damage their chances of receiving Mode 2-type research programmes, especially
when these provide an increasingly vital source of revenues.
