This paper is about the changing nature and role of university-based research in the context of the changing nature of academic work under the regimes of 'corporate' universities operating in the context of global education markets (Smyth 1995, Meek and Wood 1997). Policy shifts in higher education, and education more generally in many Western nation states, have changed the nature of the research that is done, who does it, how it is done, how it is disseminated, and its perceived use value in 'a learning society'. Universities are now just one site of many promoting lifelong learning. What is new in the past decade with the rise of new communication and information technologies is that universites are also just one site of many in the production and dissemination of knowledge (Edwards 1997).

The larger study from which this paper draws focuses upon the re-constitution of different disciplinary fields in terms of how they initially emerged as disciplines and how they have been re-positioned within the post modern university and re-engineered academic hierarchy. It investigates any epistemological shifts which may have occurred within disciplinary fields as to what constitutes 'mainstream' research methodologies, the relations of each academic field to its respective profession and communities of practice, and how this in turn impacts on knowledge production (research), knowledge authorisation(accreditation) and knowledge dissemination (publication and intellectual property) . The key question of the project, however, is whether the changed context of research and nature of research, itself resulting from new modes of governmentality, internationalisation and new information, communication and learning technologies, have transformed relations between university based researchers and their professional field of practice, the community, business, the state , their employers, their colleagues and their research students.

This is part of a wider acceptance now that academic work is being restructured (Martin 1999). Coaldrake and Stedman (1999) in Academic Work - 21^st Century, suggest that

Further on they suggest

Coaldrake and Stedman refer to how the Dearing report suggested that there should be less distinction between academic and non-academic work in universities, and that greater flexibility and diversity in the engagement and expectations of academic staff might be expected(p.1) They suggest that Dearing failed to recognise 'the diversity and professionalism of non-academic staff'. The implication of the above is that acedamic work is being restructured and that academics as we know them need to change.

The above discussion should be contextualised within a broader shift in the very nature of intellectual labour, and universities as key sites of that labour in late post industrial society (Connell 1997). The changing nature of academic work with the proliferation of modes of knowledge production, authorisation and dissemination challenging the status of academic knowledge, gives rise to issues of intellectual property as well as the ethical issues (Spearritt and Thomas 1996). Terri Seddon suggests that universities are facing a crisis in their traditional position of high status knowledge producers and authorisers in the 20^th century. This is a consequence of both the emergence of pluralist ways of knowing (post colonial, feminist, indigenous perspectives) and pluralism in knowledge production and dissemination (flexible learning, internet). On the one hand, this has had a welcome democratising impact on universities as elite and often exclusionary institutions. On the other it has begun to undermine the role of universities as the arbiters and authorisers of what constitutes quality research. Their position has established through a range of protocols and procedures ( eg, peer review, ethics requirements, intellectual property agreements). The OECD report, University Research in Transition(1998), prefaced its discussion by the following comment:

The tension here is that as the nature of research and teaching is itself being democratised (and some would say corporatised and commodified as well) in response to external pressures, there has been within the university under new modes of university governance, a desire for greater government control and measurement of research outcomes. There has been a tightening up in terms of measures of research, a tighter categorisation of what counts as research and high status researchers, and increased monitoring of research input and output (Bazely 1998). There has been both a deregulation and a re-regulation of research training, a tension evident in the White Paper, Knowledge and Innovation (DETYA 1999). This is because of the market driven context, in which research inputs (or the capacity to win research monies) and outputs (publications, student graduations) have become a significant indicator of a university's capacity to maintain their strategic hold in niche student and commercial markets. Researcher performance is important first, as an indicator of quality; and second in terms of profitability of the university competing against the proliferation of range of providers of research with the rise of consultancy markets and industry based research (eg, medicine).

The wider project focuses upon the implications the above transformations have for the academic researcher, and the future role of academics vis a vis 'the public' and the 'economy'. What does it mean for academics as they are reconstructed from being 'public intellectuals' in the 20^th century to 'new knowledge workers' in the 21st, as they become the transmitters and mediators of knowledge rather than the producers and authorisers of high status knowledge? How do these changes impact differentially for academics across a range of disciplines (science, humanities, business, the more traditional areas, and the relative newcomers such as communication, nursing, tourism, hospitality, and IT)? How inclusive is the new research regime and governmentality of research of the more interdisciplinary faculties eg. education, women's studies given, that interdisciplinarity is the key to the future (Print and Hattie 1997)? In particular, how has the management at the federal and institutional level of university based research (structure, funding and relations of research eg research quantum, partnerships) impacted upon the way academics think about and do research and how they seek to disseminate their research and view their individual research careers? What perceptions do students in research training have of academic careers as a future?

Phil Brown and Richard Skase (1994) indicate the wider implications of class relations and social mobility which eventuate from these new forms of organisation, ownership control and accountability. They see the rise of the corporation has significantly altered the nature of work, from one which was Fordist dependent upon rule governing behaviours and issues of superordination and subordination where notions of reliability and conformity dominated and where universities were the source of executive management to one of openness, flexibility and risk, in which work is vocation, and where flexibility and adaptability are key criteria in management. This has repercussions on how university research training is viewed, and the types of research training that is valued in industry. Increasingly, honours programs are seen to signal independent thinking and employability, as a ranking mechanism, rather than research training into an academic career. There is a move away from the Ph D, the traditional training for an academic career, and towards professional doctorates where practitioner researchers see it as improving their work opportunities outside and not in the academy . This has long term implications for the academy itself, as well as academic research as a vocation. This paper reviews the context which has shaped these changes, the characteristics of the changes which are emerging as indicated by the literature, how particular policy shifts impact upon institutions and academics, with some suggestions as to possible implications for women researchers.

Cowen (1996, p. 246) suggests that in the next millenium 'as an idea, the purposes and functions of a university are unclear compared to the university of the twentieth century which was firmly rooted in the 'enlightenment', in 'scientific humanism', in the 'search for an intellectual ordering of the world' and 'the celebration of a particular form of reason, the search for truth'. Van Ginkel (1995) suggests that what universities will look like in 2050 will be very different and that the form and framework must allow for creativity and innovative power to reach their full potential. He sees globalisation as having a unifying effect:

Others have similarly commented on the homogenising impact of the internationalisation of education policy on university governance and policies (Van Goedeburge and Meek ???? )

There are three notions of universities coexisting uncomfortably within universities in 2000. First, the classical or Newmanesque notion of universities as providing 'research-based training' and a 'comprehensive humanistic education', with knowledge development for its intrinsic value and not for its capacity to solve practical problems, academic freedom and the disciplines. In Australian universities there has also been a strong tradition of community service (Reid 1996). The German university of the early twentieth century had investigation as central and teaching as secondary.This notion is now seen to be under threat according to the OECD report, University Research in Transition (1998). Then there is the modern university of the past thirty years. It has seen recognition of distinction between pure, applied and developmental (strategic) research, but with recent moves to become more market oriented (Poole 1999). Students have been redefined as customers and universities as service providers, while contract based research funding has changed the relationship of universities with the state and industry. Again, these are more extensions of past tendencies, given that Australian universities prime functions have always been utilitarian and professional training institutions (Coaldrake and Stedman 1998). These two versions of the classical humanist and modernist industrial universitycoexist within most universities. They are juxtaposed against the post modern university's mission for lifelong learning with the shift to mass tertiary education. Over 30% plus are in post school degrees in USA, Australia and Canada (Jarvis 1999, Livingstone 1999). Learning how to learn, it is suggested, will be all the go in the knowledge based society because of 'continual labour market restructuring, knowledge obsolescence and multiple careers' in the digital and knowledge intensive economy (Poole 1999,p. 33, Cronje 1999). Universities will be as much about managing knowledge and becoming knowledge brokers as much as knowledge producers (Coaldrake and Stedman 1998, 1999).

The OECD report (1998, pp. 7-8) sees university based research in OECD countries as under transition. First, because, there is declining government R & D expenditure. Previously 80% of university research was funded by governments as a 'public good', but this share is reducing. Universities do 60% of all pure / basic research, yet technologies are blurring the distinction between pure/ applied research. Again, this varies across different cultural milieus. In Anglo Saxon countries, universities tend to work with public research institutions. In large continental European counties, universities research coexists and cooperates with a large public sector engaged in based and applied research. In East Asian countries universities have little research capacity. In general, firms rely on competitors for innovation not universities, but universities supply basic research upon which innovation builds. 'University research, which provides most basic research, cannot fulfil its function in the entire innovation process if it depends too heavily on market led demand' (OECD, 1998, p. 17). But the nature of government finance is also changing, with the move to contract based, short term research with clear output and performance criteria with an increased emphasis on market oriented research. This trend to contract based research is in New Zealand and Australia and even Scandinavia, where there has been some reduction in R & D. By contrast, the European Union has increased their investment in R & D up to 4%.

Second, there has been an increase in R & D finance with private industry investment, joint projects, and more applied research, but less so in some countries than others (eg. Australia). The trend is towards increased systemic linkages with joint partnerships and collaboration with industry and networks and feedback loops in national innovation systems. This is in the context of a growing demand for greater economic relevance, research which will provide innovation to improve national economic productivity. But university based research is still constrained by the rigidities of the traditional disciplinary organisation of research as well as its teaching and research training function. Furthermore, as Coaldrake and Stedman (1999, p.4) suggest, increased reliance upon non government funding

Third, Australia is positioned differently to other nation states, in the context of the internationalisation of university research, with new information and communication technologies making it more competitive with greater specialisation. It is viewed as a 'dynamic node' on the edge of the three poles of Europe, North America and Japan. This part of the overall trend, according to the OECD report, is evident with the rise of bilateral ties with multidisciplinary networks, twinning arrangements and institutional consortia (Neave 1992). Institutional 'branches' of universities are being established in other countries or states. This means less mobility of staff and students and more mobility of ideas, information, learning opportunities, institutions and programmes. Indeed, the EU now has significant regional infrastructure and support with increased funding (trebled), able to attract with the USA, a concentration of 80% of all foreign students.

Interestingly, while the funding of research is seen to provide many opportunities for business and international co-operation, two issues were stressed as critical by the OECD report. First, the lack of human resources in the form of creative, well trained and adaptive individuals who wish to be academic researchers. There are growing concernsin Australia about research personnel with the ageing of the academic workforce ( and in particular the declining interest in science) reducing the availability of well trained researchers and brain drain of high performing scientists to gain research infrastructure and long term support ( The Age, ). This lack of graduate interest in academic careers in turn leaves universities with recruitment problems.

Second, the fear that 'the role of universities as producers of knowledge is sacrificed or compromised by the lure of short term commercial gain' given that 'the production, transmission and transfer of knowledge are mutually reinforcing' (OECD 1998, p. 21). And finally, the OECD Report argues that while some OECD countries have moved to increase the distinction between teaching and research based institutions (eg. only 200 universities in USA are research universities whereas all universities in unified system in Australia are expected to teach and undertake research), the OECD report comments that this tendency if taken to its extreme, 'discounts the other important social and regional functions of universities, and the importance of fostering excellence through the balanced development of the system as a whole'(OECD 1998, p. 17).

What the above signals are a number of pressures on universities in the last decade which are fundamentally changing the nature of university research. First, there is the changing role of universities with respect to the state and 'the public'. The state has shifted from being a 'patron' of universities to being a 'purchaser' of higher education, and expects greater accountability and demonstrated returns for that investment (Coaldrake and Stedman 1999, p. 5), while industry and students have become clients in more user focused universities. In the UK and elsewhere, university reforms are altering 'the knowledge configuration, its internal modes of self organistion, and its external links'(p. 246), sharpening them up to compete, be efficient and be relevant. Cowen (1996) sees that to achieve this required public criticism of the traditional university-from a range of public agencies and public political forums- about their elitism and relevance. In Australia, this was begun with Dawkin's reforms after 1988, in which university governance was made meaner and leaner and more corporate with the 'rationalisation' from universities and collages of advanced education down to 37 universities in a unified national system; with the introduction of the HECS scheme to pay for increased access to university education; with the clawback of funds by the state from universities to fund research on more competitive and nationally prioritised basis; and the construction of a range of performance indicators upon which university productivity could be assessed.

The arguments for university reform originated in international bodies such as the OECD, which has long suggested the need for new partnerships which linked universities more closely to national economies but with reduced public expenditure ( eg ). Universities are now seen as sites of new productivity. Australian universities now contribute $1.6b in export earnings. After organisational restructuring, the focus has increasingly been on research productivity. More recently , under the Coalition government, we have the West Report (1997) in Australia and the recent review of the Australian Research Council (Sara 1999) echoing earlier OECD (1992) reports that not all universities can do basic research, and there is need for more applied research. The emphasis is increasingly towards applied research which is demand driven, ie industry determined rather than being contingent, where the aim is to predict future research foci which will be income generative rather than rely upon the serendipidity nature of pure research as in the past and which focused upon knowledge advancement for its intrinsic value. More of concern, is that the assumptions, 'language' and models of pure or basic research as outlined by the ARC, and evident in its organisational structures, are increasingly that of the physical rather than the social sciences. The message from Vicki Sara, Chair of the ARC, for 'professional' faculties such as education, was that educational research was appropriately gaining success in SPIRT grants with their more applied practitioner focused . The tendency to emphasis applied knowledge, some have argued, now suggests that the university's clients are industry and not individual students.

This raises questions about not only the value of particular types of research but also how research is seen to inform both policy and practice. These issues underpin the current debate, for example, in educational research. In 1998 a Review of Educational Research was tendered by DETYA, a review one could argue , a consequence of the Tooley and Darby report, Educational Research (1998) published in England earlier that year. In particular, the Tooley and Darby report was seen to focus its attack on particular types of research (qualitative), and particular researchers (feminist), on the basis that the research reported in four key educational research journals was neither methodologically rigorous or relevant to practitioners or policymakers (Deem 1996; MacIntyre 1997, Hammersley 1997). The implication, many critics of the Tooley and Darby report suggested, was that only research that was immediataly applicable to some current educational problem, and which specifically met government needs, was valid and useful. Second, that educational research was not about theory or 'pure' research or even policy analysis. And third, that quantitative research was valued clearly over qualitative because of its generalisability. An Australian review of educational research ( yet to be released) is therefore significant at a time when there has been a reduction in expenditure on educational research by state authorities, which now generate large data bases on their student and staff populations but which lack any research or policy analysts to utilise effectively. It signals a return to the privileging of quantitative over qualitative research at the moment that we in the academy believed that the old qualitative / quantitative research dichotomy has long been announced dead. Furthermore, this review of how educational research informs policy and practice is in a climate when the dominant concern of the state is about finding better measures of research performance rather than recognising that different forms of research answer and respond to different research issues, problems and questions which may require a more inclusive range of research indicators.

Not only do the above debates signal the de-legitimation of the traditional assumptions of autonomy and separateness of the academy from political concerns as universities are more closely aligned with national productivity, they also highlight the theory - practice tension inherent in the modern university which is now perceived to be dysfunctional in a post modern world where experience and theory have arguably collapsed. The question is whether, as universities 'reinvent themselves internationally, universities move away from the state capacity building work which is expected of them. Perhaps they will reorient themselves more towards regional interests than local' (Kenway and Langmeand 1998, p. 30).

The second impulse, and perhaps more powerful, has come from postmodernist and feminist critiques from within the academy about the nature of knowledge in a period of epistemological uncertainty (Stronach and MacClure 1997). This debate needs to be located in the wider context of political fragmentation and a search for identity arising from the end of the cold war and the triumph of market democracy from which there has emerged a 'crisis in meaning' (Laidi 1998). Globalisation, Laidi argues, the basis for this loss of meaning, is bereft of meaning other than the prescription of market efficiency, a notion which is morally bereft. Laidi suggests that there is no longer a foundation for collective action but instead a loss of sense of unity or coherence of the whole world as an image and little sense of the end. This search for meaning taps into the post modernist desire to reject metanarratives. In world time, the gap that separated experience (what we have done) from expectation (what we aspire to) has gone because of the instantaneousness which puts political projects out of date even before their vision is articulated. This is not without irony for feminists, primary instigators of epistemological dissent. While feminists would agree that some metanarratives need to be expelled, such as the universalising notions of truth through particular models of science which ignore 'the other's experience, others are worth retaining , for example, the metanarratives of social justice.

Meanwhile, while postmodernists within the academy have undermined the metanarrative of scientific discourses about the search for truth of the modernist university, the state now sees knowledge and science in particular as the most important form of production and consumption that will give them the competitive edge eg bio-technologies. The market state now seeks to make science, the university and systems of knowledge production operate according to principles of performativity. This is defined by Lyotard as the discourse of management and business devoted to 'optimising the systems performance efficiency' (p. xxiv). The end reduces to performing better, about being more efficient and more relevant. This is at the moment when there is a growth of knowledge production and modes of dissemination originating outside the academy. Cowen (1996) suggests that the above means universities claims to provide special status knowledge is lost, and so is their defence against state control and intervention. They are now being expected to perform better along management lines, and to focus upon that which is most productive economically ie. science-in-use now becomes the legitimating principle rather than science as search-for-truth. These trends are again reflected in the Dawkins reforms after 1988, the Dearing Report in the UK (1997)and more recently the ARC review (1999) with its strong policy foci on science, technology and competitiveness in international markets. But as Ian Castles, deputy president of the Academy of Social Sciences points out, there is a perpetuation in these discourses of an exceptionally narrow conceptualisation of science, one portrayed by UNESCO and other governments in policy, based on the false and 'anachronistic division between organised knowledge in the social and the nature spheres' (Castles 1999, p. 11). It is the natural sciences and technology which are seen to provide solutions as if science and technology exists free of social constraints and consequences, and moral and ethical issues. While there is significant media attention on the death of science, the death of the humanities ( eg. closure of anthropology departments) arouses less concern.

A third factor informing these changes on academic research is the changing nature of knowledge production, authorisation and dissemination. It is particularly evident in new modes by which research is undertaken to inform policy. Jonathan Tritter (1997) suggests that not only has the organisation, funding and delivery of higher education and research radically altered in the past decade, but also the methodologies we apply and the ethical dilemmas researchers face. Under the new contractualism of the market state, there is a changed relationship between the researcher and the user of research. Both government and non government research is increasingly outsourced, more short term, and done outside universities by private consultants. Governments seek to control research objectives, process and outcomes (McTaggart and Blackmore 1990) while universities seek to claim academics have intellectual property over their research. Public policy research, for example, is increasingly tendered for by branches of large management and accountancy firms dedicated to these tasks. University based academics meanwhile have reduced cacpacities to compete in this competitive arena because of the intensification of their labour with increased teaching workloads, reduced research infrastructure support and university management seeking to 'cream off' profit out of this additional 'academic labour'.

The paradox is that while there is an opening up in terms of who are providers and what defines research within the market, within universities there is a tightening up and consolidation of new research hierarchies between active and non active researchers, research and teaching universities, natural and social sciences as a result of the new accountability and auditing regimes of DETYA and in particular the research quantum, with its strict regulation and ordering of what counts as a publication . The notion of 'self managed scholarly activity' or 'policy research' is open to fewer academics, and then increasingly in sandstone universities (cf.Tritter, 1995, p. 420). At the same time, universities are indicating growing concern about ethics in research, as much out of fear of litigation as quality of research, and imposing tighter legalistic definitions and constraints on university based researchers and research students .

University based research faces the paradox in that it is these very processes, procedures and structures which authorise knowledge production and which define what constitutes valued knowledge within the university which have traditionally protected the quality of university based research, yet such constraints are not expected or placed on non-university based research or are being pushed aside in university - industry partnerships. Yet it may be these very modes of authorisation (methodological rigour, ethical protocols etc) which maintain the 'market value' of university based research amongst the proliferation of research providers.

Furthermore, the proliferation in knowledge based economies of an expanding field of research based experts working outsides universities in turn put new demands on universities to provide resources other than teaching and research training.eg. data bases, learning networks, libraries, computer centres, internet servers, facilitators of knowledge transmission through technological networks rather than producers of knowledge (Walshok 1995). Universities are caught out between being the primary determiners of what is valued knowledge, as the authority, to becoming both providers and purchasers of knowledge work, disseminators, mediators or knowledge brokers . Walshock (1995, p. 9) suggest that universities have 'inadvertently created a kind of mandarin culture with the university just as knowledge and expertise are apparently becoming more democratised...'.

Another aspect of changing nature of knowledge production, authorisation, dissemination and transfer is the multiplicity and proliferation of new communication and learning technologies. These not only have a significant impact on the work practices of the academy (teaching and administration), but more specifically on research as the mode of dissemination of research is radically changed due to electronic publishing, global communications and concentration of ownership of academic publishing houses. Philip Altbach (1997, p. 63) argues that the

There is a growth of communication networks to deal with the proliferation of knowledge sources-through bibliographic indexes such as ERIC and through informal electronic networks, forming local and international 'invisible colleges' ie. the informal international communities of scholars and others who constitute the core groups of disciplines, fields of study and even applied fields (Altbach 1997, p. 64; ) and the practice based local networks (Blackmore 1999). But because the knowledge network internationally is US centred ( with over 20% academics globally, half of world's journals and R & D expenditures), there is the tendency to homogenise research towards one market (the USA), a tendency exacerbated by the Anglicisation of communication eg. Elsevier , a Dutch publication company with over 1000 academic journals, now publishes in English. The dominance of Anglo-American academic systems is a product of the patterns of ownership international knowledge networks.

The methodological and sometime ideological paradigms of these academic systems tend to dominate international scholarship not only because much of the research that is funded informs these paradigms but also because the journals and publishers use these as the ;'gold standard' of quality in selecting material for publication (Altbach 1997, p. 67). Australian academics have always been asked when seeking to put in a book proposal to an international or even national publisher, who is your market, is it international enough (meaning is is palatable to the American and English markets)? As an editor of an Australian journal, when considering whether we would publish with an international publisher rather than locally, we were asked how would we internationalise the journal? Demand for Australian research on Australia is not great in an American dominated market which is decidely American 'centric'. Being at the centre of globalisation does not require one to know about or understand the 'other'. As authors seeking publication in international journals we are constantly reminded that Australian research on Australian education, although dominant in many high status education journals, is not 'international' unless it has significant (more than half) references to English, European or American scholarship. Yet seemingly English studies located in England are 'international' ('relevant'). While Australia, as New Zealand or South Africa are marginal, non English speaking (Nordic states) and Third World nations are out of the scene altogether.

The above produce a range of interesting international, national and local responses with different implications for particular institutions, disciplines and academics . There is a recognition, however, that the very sui generis of universities as key sites of knowledge production, authorisation, transfer and dissemination in twentieth century society is being challenged.

Australian universities have, since the 1987 Dawkins reforms which established the unified tertiary sector, been radically restructured in their management practices and relationships with each other and society

Forgotten in all of this confusion is the issue of equity. Yet some would argue that the principles upon which much university reform has been premised are inherently about inequality. Markets and deregulation, for example, are premised upon individual choice which works against, for example, women and indigenous groups, both as academic ersearchers and research students. The capacity to make a choice is reliant upon individual purchasing power. Women, indigenous and those cultural groups who traditionally 'do not go' into universities, tend to have less familial and employer support for education and training as well as lower individual average income (Brabham and Henry 1999).

In terms of work practices, there has been an argument that more competitive climate has wraught asunder the former collegial nature of academic work ( Manne 1998). But as Cassidy (1999, p. 43) points out,

This is a point well made by feminists in their critiques of the first phases of university restructuring; restructuring has more generally meant more powerful to the powerful, in largely male dominated institutions( Blackmore 1992; Woodall , Edwards and Welchman, 1997). What has occurred in the increased overlap onto, and indeed subsumption by, the management hierarchy of previous academic hierarchies. The recent reforms merely highlight the position and expansion of the academic underclass in universities, where women are largely located (Castleman et al 199 ). This is in turn is replicated in the new research management hierarchies where 'University councils, academic boards and research and promotion committees are traditionally dominated by a professorial elite' ( Cassidy 1998, p. 42) While many professors (many who assume management roles) are not subject to performance review, new academics and novice researchers are subject increasingly to a range of performance reviews (Gribch 1998). Indeed, one could argue that the new core workers of entrepreneurial universities are in management , while academics are now the flexible, increasingly casualised and marginalised workers. On top of this, academics are expected to leap a range of additional hurdles (eg international reputation, winning grants) above and beyond the competence expected of administrative promotions (Kenway and Langmead 1999).

Probert's ( 1998) recent analysis of the academic labour and Burton's (1997) study indicates that women do not have pay equity in universities, despite undertaking work of comparable worth. They continue to be employed at lower levels and recruited into lower salary range ( eg. 71% women at level A and B . They therefore take longer and come later to research, both for training (eg average age of post graduate research degrees is higher in education etc than science) and in terms of career paths and have a a restricted capacity to get to professor. What was also clear was that men continue to be recruited and appointed at higher levels (45% men and 70% women started at Level A or as research assistant, while only 50% men) and that length of time in tenured positions accounted for differences in fewer women at top. Being at the bottom means more teaching. Prestigous research grants continue to privilege long research histories and publication records. And as Burton argues, ' the interests , time commitment and orientations to teacher as associated with depressed publication productivity...the data indicate than practice good- or at least productive- researchers have less classroom contact with students, spend fewer hours preparing for courses and consider teaching much less important than research' ( Burton 1997, p., 110). The equation of research and being a good academic is clear in any issues of promotion.

The new emphasis of government policy on outcomes and graduation rates also has significant implications for those faculties which have slower graduation rates ( eg more part time students); and in those disciplinary areas where there are more individual than team based work ( eg humanities, education and social sciences ). Again, there is the 'coincidence' of part time study, more individual study programs, 'soft'science and female overrepresentation as students and staff which points to out an ongoing but implicit bias in research funding policies (Blackmore and Kenway 1988).

Again, the irony of the current push for partnerships is obvious in the social sciences and humanities in a number of ways. The language of partnerships with industry, while claiming to include government and non government organisations and communities as being included under 'industry', ignores the critical point that government and communities are not good sources of research funding although there is a great need for research. This makes the expectation of mutual monetary commitment in SPIRT grants, for example, extremely difficult, for example, in education where there has been a radical reduction of public investment and research funding. It also means that if input ( ie dollars won) continues to be the primary measure of research productivity, the system continues to work against those faculties whose 'industry' is the public or the public sector, again areas such as education, welfare and the arts. Publishing in professional journals which do not count on research quantums. As Burton suggests (1997), international refereed journals are the benchmark of academic excellence

Nor do these policies address the diversity of modes of knowledge production across the disciplinary areas. The social sciences are labour intensive research activities not capital intensive like the natural sciences and technology. The best measure of their productivity is publication, which one could suggest is a better measure of productivity as it measures 'value adding'( Delandshire and Petrosky 1998).

Finally, the move to see the large ARC as the avenue by which to promote excellence is premised upon simple science model of excellence which fails to address the diversity of research paradigms and models, activities and research capacities. Kenway and Langmead (1998, p. 31)conclude

In conclusion. universities are now challenged as sites of public intellectual endeavour, in building social capital, in critical social research. These are the debates so absent in current discourses around universities . These are the issues which underpin the marginalisation of the social sciences. Yet many would argue that it could be in the area of critical and independent analysis that may actually be the final reason for the retention of universities as publically funded institutions. There is a distinct and ongoing need for alternative sources of public policy formation. In that sense, it is the professional and public utility value, the intellectual integrity of university based research, which is its most marketable commodity . Higher education and its role in building social capital, in developing the cultural and intellectual infrastructure of society, is necessary in a socially just and humane society It is also central to underpin and indeed forms the social glue for technological and scientific development. What also characterises public policy on universities, according to Poole, is governments refusal to 'accept that university education brings other public benefits which are impossible to quantify'(Poole, 1999, p. 29). Poole argues that the notion of universities as sites of 'conlficting ideas and values which can be articulated and explored without threat to social cohesion' is a fundamental function of a democracy. And as Newsom (1994) comments , it will be students of the 'service' university who will be the final jusge as they more than any feel the impact of the contradictions between instrumental and democratic notions of intellectual work. It is their experience in the university which encourages them to adopt the narrow 'consumption approach' to knowledge production and dissemination rather than view it as a wider intellectual endeavour necessary and to be valued in a democratic society.