ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the changing socio-political and institutional contexts related to academic research, and the different ways in which contract relations may be influencing, and changing, the knowledge production process in universities. It considers the contract research process in relation to the development and propagation of knowledge about cities, with the focus, primarily, on projects sponsored by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The DCLG defines itself as the government ministry that sets policy on local government, housing, urban regeneration, planning and fire and rescue. A recent statement by the Confederation of British Industry makes it clear that university researchers have obligations to use their skills for the greater economic and social well being of British citizens. The reduction in stability is reflected by the re-orientation of much of the knowledge production process in universities towards contract research, and the encouragement, by university managers, of entrepreneurial behaviour and activities.
