ABSTRACT
Using critical discourse analysis, this chapter examines meanings attributed to excellence in Estonian academic research policy discourse. Specifically, we focus on how centres of excellence in research (CERs) are constructed in national research policy documents. Engaging with critical perspectives on academic capitalism, our analysis seeks to understand whether and how formulations of CERs rely on and advance a neoliberal agenda in academic settings and (re)produce gender inequalities. Our findings suggest that Estonian research policymakers narrowly conceptualise excellence in largely quantitative terms and tie it to various performance indicators that are not, however, neutral but give an advantage to a limited number of disciplines – those in hard sciences and dominated by male researchers. A key aim behind pursuing very narrowly defined performance indicators that are understood as excellence is to boost economic growth by supporting private enterprises. This sustains academic inequalities between more masculinised and more marketable disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and feminised humanities and social sciences which provide critical analyses of society and its underlying ideologies, including ideas about gender. These ways of constructing CERs reflect and simultaneously recreate a neoliberal social and political climate. CERs, conceptualised in such a way, do not help to reduce gender-based and other hierarchies in academic institutions. Instead, they increase inequalities among researchers, research groups, disciplines, and universities. First, STEM fields, with predominantly male research groups, continue to be perceived as sources of cutting-edge research of societal importance and academic excellence, while the humanities and social sciences, where the majority of researchers are women, are at best viewed as having a local role in studying heritage and producing applied research. Second, this gender and discipline imbalance discourages critical investigation of society and its power structures.
