Academic leaders reinterpreting research profiling
National science and higher education
policies do not develop in a vacuum.
Instead, they are often influenced by
global policy ideas put further by rankings
and evaluations. Also academic
staff and university leaders may with
their own activity affect the content
and outcomes of policy reforms.
Supranational and intergovernmental organisations,
such as the EU, have a crucial
role in disseminating policy ideas
related to science and educational policy
(see, e.g., Erkkilä & Piironen 2014; Moisio
2014). The Europe 2020 strategy of the EU connects
the discourse on research excellence with the political
attempts to establish knowledge-based economy
in Europe (Sørensen et al. 2015). Various policy documents
argue that the research profiles in the EU are
too fragmented compared to the competitors in the
United States and Asia.
Correspondingly, the Ministry of Education and
Culture in Finland attempts to clarify the division of
work in the national higher education sector. Division
of work has been justified by the need to improve
the competitiveness of Finnish universities.
One of the policy reforms in Finland relates to building
profiles for universities. At the university level,
profiling of research, as implicated by the Ministry
of Education and Culture, means giving priority to
strong research areas.
When resources for research and teaching are
scarce, it is argued that universities should focus
more on the fields where they have specific
strengths. Research profiling is, however, a controversial
theme, because demands for the freedom of
research and demands to steer it are contradictory.
To understand why institutional reforms succeed or
fail, it is important to study the responses of academic
staff.
In my study (Pietilä 2014), I analysed academic
leaders’ conceptions of research profiling. In the
article, I identified two general conceptions of research
profiling based on interviews with rectors,
deans and department heads working in two Finnish
universities. Both of these conceptions were linked
to various rationales, by which the leaders legitimated
their stand.
Research profiling as instrument
of strategic management
Research profiling as an instrument of strategic management
portrays universities’ research activities as
requiring considerable changes: being successful requires
choice-making in the research portfolio and
determinate leadership. From the strategic perspective,
profiling is seen as a self-initiated change process,
although also supported by other actors.
The strategic implementation of profiling is connected
with various rationales that leaders aim to
pursue. The first, predominant rationale considers
research profiling a way to strengthen research and
the university’s status as a research university. By
highlighting critical mass, research excellence and
internationalisation of the research environment, it
fits the current political rationality.
The second, economic rationale focuses on the
increasing costs of research and the tightening of
university budgets. Many interviewed leaders perceived
that economic pressures trigger a need to prioritise
activities, because units cannot afford to do
everything.
The third rationale emphasises the interconnections
of science and society, and the responsibility
of researchers to tackle societally relevant research
questions: decisions that allocate resources to areas
that are central to society should be made.
The fourth rationale interprets research profiling
as a power and resource game between academic
fields. This means that all units have incentives to try to become visible in research policies to secure their
position within the university.
Research profiling as
symbolic management
In the above examples, focus areas influence the allocation
of university’s internal funds and recruitment
of staff. However, research profiling may also
be interpreted as a symbolic act and research profiles
as facades to the external audience. This means that
although decisions are made, they do not necessarily
affect universities’ internal activities. In this case,
leaders rhetorically refer to building profiles, because
this is what is expected
from them: profile-building
is a general norm in Finland
and globally, ‘the world we
live in’.
The symbolic implementation
of profiling is also
connected with various rationales.
The first centres on
the protection of individual
orientation of researchers
and emphasises the negative
consequences of research steering. These include
the exclusion of researchers who work in small research
fields, uncertainty and fears about becoming
an outsider, and problems with work motivation if
research is divided into strategic and non-strategic.
The second rationale addresses the incompatibility
of research steering with the unpredictable
nature of research. Choice-making in basic research
is seen as risky especially in infrastructure-intensive
areas because of the possible ‘wrong choices’ and the
difficulty of changing direction afterwards.
The third practical rationale is based on the view
that choice-making is especially difficult in a large,
comprehensive university or unit.
The fourth rationale emphasises research profiles
as communication channels with actors outside the
university, such as potential recruits and students.
From this perspective, a broad comprehensive profile
may provide an attractive image for various groups.
Conclusions
Global policies of research profiling have made it essential
for academic leaders to make sense of the issue
and to respond to it in some way. However, the
analysis presented in the study (Pietilä 2014) shows
not only the variability and richness, but also the incoherence
and conflict of leaders’ conceptions and
the underlying rationalities.
Academic leaders are
faced with multiple pressures:
they should be able to
simultaneously communicate
with different audiences,
such as the work community,
other leaders, policy-makers,
students, and funders. To
give an example, universities
should ideally be focused
on fundamental, world-class
research. Yet research should be societally relevant
and contacts with the society should be intense.
Universities should make ‘clear choices’ yet not become
rigid but be open for new openings. Research
should be narrowly focused, yet students should be
widely educated.
As the case of research profiling exemplifies, academic
leaders are able to both promote and transform
policy reforms by interpreting them in different
ways. In some cases, they may act as buffers between
the academic community and external pressures.
Maria Pietilä is a doctoral student
at the Department of Political and Economic Studies,
University of Helsinki.
References
Erkkilä, T. & O. Piironen.
2014. Shifting fundaments of
European higher education
governance: competition,
ranking, autonomy and
accountability. Comparative
Education. 50(2), 177–191.
Moisio, J. 2014. Understanding
the significance of EU higher
education policy cooperation
in Finnish higher education
policy. Acta Universitatis Tamperensis.
Tampere: Tampere
University Press.
Pietilä, M. 2014. The many
faces of research profiling:
academic leaders’ conceptions
of research steering. Higher
Education, 67(3), 303–316.
Sørensen, M.P., C. Bloch & M.
Young. 2015. Excellence in the
knowledge-based economy: from
scientific to research excellence.
European Journal of Higher Education,
doi: 10.1080/21568235.
2015.1015106.
Text Maria Pietilä
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