Questions of quality in practitioner research: universities in the 21st century – the need for safe places for unsafe ideas

When I look at the work of universities in the 21st Century I similarly want to characterise them thus. Of course they should be places where knowledge is created, evaluated and applied using the most rigorous methodologies available; but they should also be places that allow consensual values themselves to be made problematic without fear or favour. Everywhere we turn there are controversial issues in the physical and social sciences and humanities that require scholarly attention. Stem cell research, climate change, and the representation of histories, to name but a few.