Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:04:08.917Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Higher Education Inc.: The Personal and Professional Dilemmas of Environmental Educators Undertaking Research With/For Private Corporations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Julie Davis  and
Jo-Anne Ferreira
Julie Davis*
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
Jo-Anne Ferreira
Affiliation:
Griffith University
*
†Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, QLD 4069, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We are living in an era of market-driven, globalised economies characterised by reduced public investments in what, until now, have been considered public goods and services. In Australia and elsewhere, education, and higher education in particular, has seen steady declines in government funding. This has prompted universities to become much more entrepreneurial and to seek out new funding opportunities to support their teaching and research activities. This paper reflects on the personal and professional dilemmas and challenges we faced as two early career environmental education researchers who were commissioned to undertake research for a private corporation. As a result of issues raised during this process, we engaged in a critical reflection of our perceptions and feelings about our involvement in the project. In essence, dilemmas and challenges centred around two issues: (1) control/ ownership of the research; and (2) the clash between corporate and university values. This paper explores these issues and suggests that greater mindfulness on the part of individual researchers as well as the development of better university-corporate partnership processes and protocols might provide useful starting points for overcoming such dilemmas and for moving forward with university-corporate research partnerships.

Keywords

globalisationcommercialisationhigher educationenvironmental education researchuniversity-corporation partnershipsvaluesethicsownershipearly career researchers
Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , 2006 , pp. 39 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006 

References

Behrens, T., & Gray, D. (2001). Unintended consequences of cooperative research: Impact of industry sponsorship on climate for academic freedom and other graduate student outcomes. Research Policy, 30, 179–199.Google Scholar
Bok, D. (2004). The benefits and costs of commercialization of the academy. In Stein, D. G. (Ed.), Buying in or selling out? The commercialization of the American research university (pp. 32–47.). New Brunswick N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Bowie, N. (1994). University-business partnerships: An assessment. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Campbell, T. (1997). Public policy for the 21st century: Addressing potential conflicts in university-industry collaboration. The Review of Higher Education, 20(4), 357–379.Google Scholar
Chesterman, C., Ross-Smith, A., & Peters, M. (2003). Changing the landscape: Women in academic leadership in Australia. McGill Journal of Education, 38(3), Autumn.Google Scholar
Dozier, D., & Lauzen, M. (2000). Liberating the intellectual domain from the practice: Public relations, activism, and the role of the scholar. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12(1), 3–22.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, M. (2003). The morphing of the American academic profession. Liberal Education (Fall), 6–15.Google Scholar
Fulop, L., & Couchman, P. (2006). Facing up to the risks in commercially focused university-industry R&D partnership. Higher Education Research and Development, 25(2), 163–177.Google Scholar
Giroux, H. (2003). Selling out higher education. Policy Futures in Education, 1(1), 179–200.Google Scholar
Handscombe, R., & Patterson, E. (2000). The strategic mismatch of industrial and university research. International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2(1–7), 1013–1023.Google Scholar
Henry, D., Kerridge, I., Hill, S., McNeill, P., Dorn, E., Newby, D., et al. (2005). Medical specialists and pharmaceutical industri-sponsored research: A survey of the Australian experience. Medical Journal of Australia, 182(11), 557–560.Google Scholar
Hurmelinna, P. (2004). Motivations and barriers related to university-industry collaboration - appropriability and the principle of publicity. Paper presented at the Seminar on Innovation, UC Berkeley, Haas.Google Scholar
Macnamara, L., & Armitage, C. (2006, Wed 14 06). Better business, uni links needed. The Australian, p. 29.Google Scholar
Marginson, S. (2000). Rethinking academic work in the global era. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 22(1), 23–35.Google Scholar
McWilliam, E. (2002). How to survive best practice. Brisbane: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Pavitt, K. (1998). The social shaping of the national science base. Research Policy, 27(8), 793–805.Google Scholar
Rai, A. (2004). The Increasingly proprietary nature of publicly funded biomedical research: Benefits and threats. In Stein, D. G. (Ed.), Buying in or selling out? The commercialization of the American research university (pp. 117–126.). New Brunswick N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Resnik, D. (2000). Financial interests and research bias. Perspectives on Science, 8(3), 255–285.Google Scholar
Sharma, A. (2005, Wed 11 05). Let users decide if research is relevant. The Australian, p. 39.Google Scholar
Slaughter, S., Archerd, C., & Campbell, T. (2004). Boundaries and quandries: How professors negotiate market relations. Review of Higher Education, 28(1), 129–165.Google Scholar