This document discusses the author's research project on the emergence of a new epistemic governance in education. It will analyze how instruments, knowledge, and the state interact and the mid-term effects on the academic profession. Specifically, the author will develop a reflection on how knowledge and instruments of governance are shaping a new form of academic work and identity of academics. The document provides context by reviewing literature on the marketization of higher education, actors and discourses, and transformations in knowledge production and the role of expertise in policymaking. It also outlines criticisms of academia and drivers of external change like the "mode 2" of knowledge and evidence-based policymaking.

1. Thinking Epistemic
Governance in Education
Romuald Normand
Research Unit SAGE (Societies, Actors and Government in Europe)
University of Strasbourg

2. Current research on Higher education
• Emerging power of global academic
capitalism (Dale, 1999, Dale &
Robertson, 2009, Slaughter & Leslie,
1997))
• Marketization and privatization
(Margison, 2004, 2006, 2007)
• Development of international
rankings: (Hazelkorn, 2011)
• Bologna process and its consequences
(Neave, 1994; Neave & Maasen, 2007)
• Network of actors (Think Tanks,
International Organizations,
agencies, states, companies, and
consultancy groups) (Ball,2012)

3. Some blind Spots in European Research
• The hypertrophy of market and
marketization : and the State?
• The focus on actors and discourses:
what about instruments and tools
of governance? (Desrosières, 2002;
Gorur, 2011; Grek, 2012; Grek aet
alii, 2009; Lascoumes & Le Gales,
2007; Normand, 2009, 2010, Ozga &
Alii,2011)
• What means really Knowlege-Based
Economy or Knowlege-Based
Society ? (OECD, 1996; Lawn, 2011)

4. My Research Project
• Developing a reflection on
the relationships between
the state, instruments and
knowledge
• A new epistemic governance
in/of education ?
• Analyzing the mid-term
effects on the academic
profession and work
• A new Homo Academicus ?

5. (1984)

6. Criticism against the academic World
• Bureaucracy and corporatism
• Failure of higher education
systems
• Academics enclosed in their
“ivory tower”,

7. Exogenous transformations
• The mode 2 of knowledge
production (Gibbons & alii,
1994; Maassen ,Stensaker,
2011)
• Expertise & policy learning
(Dunlop & Radaelli, 2013,
Gornitzka, 2013; Lange &
Alexiadou, 2010, Radaelli,
2008; Radaelli & Dunlop, 2013)
• Robust Knowledge (Weingart,
2008)

8. Endogenous transformations
• Discourses of Truth
• Managerialism (Blieklie,1998,
Deem, 1998)
• New intermediary spaces

9. Mandarin Expert
Peer Entrepreneur
PerformanceTradition
Competition
Reputation
Work Conventions

10. Academic Trials or Hardships (Boltanski,
Chiapello; 2005).
• Trials of Truth
• Trials of Strength
• Trials of Reality

11. Conclusion

12. Some References
• Ball S.J., 2012, Global Education Inc. New Policy Networks and the Neoliberal Imaginary London, Routledge
• Bleiklie I. 1998, “Justifying the Evaluative State. New Public Management Ideals in Higher Education”, European Journal of Education, 33
• Boltanski, E. Chiapello; (2005). The New Spirit of Capitalism. Verso,London
• Dale, R. (1999) Specifying globalisation effects on national policy: focus on the mechanisms, Journal of Education Policy 14: 1-17.
• Dale R, Robertson S., 2009, Globalisation and Europeanisation in Education, Oxford Symposium Books
• Deem, R. (1998). 'New managerialism' and higher education: The management of performances and cultures in universities in the United
Kingdom. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 8(1), 47-70.
• Desrosières, A., 2002, The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning, Harvard, Harvard University Press.
• Dunlop, C. A., & Radaelli, C. M. (2013). Systematising policy learning: from monolith to dimensions. Political studies, 61(3), 599-619.
• Gibbons M. et al., Eds., The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, London–Thausand
Oaks - New Dehli, 1994, VII. Cfr.
• Gornitzka, Å. (2013). The interface between research and policy–a note with potential relevance for higher education. European Journal of Higher
Education, 3(3), 255-264.
• Gorur, R. (2011) ANT on the PISA Trail: following the statistical pursuit of certainty, Educational Philosophy & Theory, 43(5-6), 76-93.
• Grek S., 2012, “Learning from Meetings and Comparison: A Critical Examination of the Policy Tools of Transnationals” in Steiner-Khamsi G., Waldow F.,
Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education. New York Routledge World Yearbook of Education, pp 41-61
• Grek, S., Lawn, M., Lingard, B., Ozga, J., Rinne, R., Segerholm, C., & Simola, H. (2009). National policy brokering and the construction of the
European Education Space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland. Comparative Education, 45(1), 5-21.
• Hazelkorn, E. (2011). Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education. The Battle for World-Class Excellence, HoudMills UK: Palgrave MacMillan.

13. • Lange, B. and Alexiadou, N. (2010)., 25/4 (July), 443–63. ‘Policy Learning and Governance of Education Policy in the EU’, Journal of Education Policy
• Lascoumes, P., & Le Gales, P. (2007). Introduction: understanding public policy through its instruments—from the nature of instruments to the sociology of
public policy instrumentation. Governance, 20(1), 1-21.
• Lawn, M. (2011). Standardizing the European education policy space. European Educational Research Journal, 10(2), 259-272.
• Maassen P., Stensaker B., 2011, The knowledge triangle, European higher education policy logics and policy implications Higher Education, Vol. 61, No. 6
(June), pp. 757-769
• Marginson, S. (2004). Competition and markets in higher education: A ‘glonacal’ analysis. Policy futures in Education, 2(2), 175-244.
• Marginson, S. (2006). Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education. Higher education, 52(1), 1-39.
• Marginson, S. (2007). Global university rankings: Implications in general and for Australia. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 29(2), 131-142.
• Neave, G. (1994). The politics of quality: Developments in higher education in western Europe 1992-1994. European journal of education, 115-134.
• Neave, G., and Maasen, P., 2007, The Bologna Process: An Intergovernmental Policy Perspective.In: J.P. Olsen and P. Maasen (eds.), University Dynamics and
European Integration (pp.135-154). Dordrech, The Netherlands: Springer
• Normand (R.), «Expert measurement in the government of Lifelong Learning» in Mangenot (E.), Rowell (J.), coord., What Europe constructs: New Sociological
Perspectives in European Studies, Manchester University Press, 2009.
• Normand R, 2010, « Expertise, Networks and Tools of Government: the Fabrication of European Policy in Education » in European Educational Research
Journal, 9(3), pp. 408-423.
• OECD, 1996, The Knowledge-based Economy OECD.
• OECD, 2007, Evidence in Education. Linking Research and Policy, OCDE.
• Ozga, J., Dahler-Larsen, P., Segerholm, C., & Simola, H. (Eds.). (2011). Fabricating quality in education: Data and governance in Europe. Routledge.
• Radaelli, C. M. (2008). Europeanization, policy learning, and new modes of governance. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 10(3), 239-254.
• Radaelli, C. M., & Dunlop, C. A. (2013). Learning in the European Union: theoretical lenses and meta-theory. Journal of European Public Policy, 20(6), 923-
940.
• Slaughter S, Leslie LL (1997) Academic capitalism. Politics, policies and the Entrepreneurial University, John Hopkins University Press, London
• Weingart (2008) How Robust Is “Socially Robust Knowledge”? in The challenge of the social and the pressure of practice: science and values revisited / edited
by Martin Carrier, Don Howard, and Janet Kourany. Pittsburgh University Press. p. 131-145