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Research, a major purpose of higher education, has become increasingly important in a context of global economic competitiveness. In this paper, we draw on data from email interviews with academics in Britain to explore responses to current research policy trends. Although the majority of academics expressed opposition to current policy developments, most were nevertheless complying with research imperatives. Informed by a Foucauldian conceptualisation of audit, feminist research on gendered performativity, and sociological and psycho-social theoretical resources on the affective, we discuss compliance, contestation and complicity in relation both to the data and to our own location as academics in this field.

Suggests that the agenda and culture of reform in UK medical schools should be underpinned by more interpretive and reflexive research paradigms. Illustrates how the key tensions inherent in the professional socialization of doctors--between "objectifying" and "humanizing"--construct and limit both the capacity to change medical schools and the capacity for medical schools to understand themselves. (EV)

The work of college faculty in the United Kingdom is conceptualized as five overlapping responsibilities (teaching, research, managing, writing, networking), and existing literature on each is reviewed. Although much is written on the teaching role, and somewhat less on managing, little of a cross-disciplinary nature has been written about academic research, writing, or networking. (Author/MSE)

Discussion of British university autonomy distinguishes between institutional autonomy and that of their academic staff. It is argued that, in the past decade, decline in professorial autonomy has been matched by enhancement of institutional autonomy and that universities exercise this autonomy within the funding parameters the government has established. (MSE)

The author argues that the behaviorist approach to learning inherent in competency-based education is inappropriate for teaching and learning at the higher education level, because it both prescribes and restricts content, methodology, and learning options. Discussion is in the context of a current British postsecondary education policy initiative. (MSE)

Two periods in British higher education are compared for the approaches taken to widening educational access. It is concluded that government policy in the postwar period emphasized expansion for the purposes of labor force development, whereas more recent expansion policy reflects a government commitment to greater accountability and social integration. (Author/MSE)

Issues in the debate over expansion of British mass higher education are examined, including the need to encourage institutional diversity, expand part-time study, integrate part- and full-time programs, provide funding based on student credit points and integrated financial aid, and raise awareness of these issues in the academic community. (MSE)