1 June 2016

2.10pm, Committee Room 1, Glamorgan building; UCU buffet lunch for everyone from 1.45pm

Liz Morrish (Nottingham Trent University)

The metric tide which sinks all boats: the discourse of performance management

In an era of neoliberal reforms, academics in UK universities have become increasingly enmeshed in audit, particularly of research ‘outputs’. Using the data of performance management and training documents, this paper analyses the role of discourse in redefining the meaning of research, and in colonizing a new kind of entrepreneurial, corporate academic. The new regime in universities is characterized by slippage between the audit and disciplinary functions of performance management. I conclude that academic freedom is unlikely to emerge from a system which demands compliance with a regime of unattainable targets and constant surveillance.

Liz Morrish is Principal Lecturer and Subject Leader of Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University. She locates her research within the emerging paradigm of Critical University Studies, and her current work uses techniques of applied linguistics to analyze the discourse of managerialism in higher education. Liz is the co-author (with Helen Sauntson) of New Perspectives on Language and Sexual Identity (Palgrave, 2007). She blogs on managerial discourse, performance management and other features of audit culture in universities at www.academicirregularities.wordpress.com.