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Academic capitalism, competition and competence: the impact on student recruitment and research assessment

ABSTRACT Recent events show a government in constant changes of mind about how to control implementation of frequently changing policies, and the inefficiencies and inequalities that result from capitalistic approaches to public service functions. These same factors feature within higher education (HE), demonstrating that the values, culture, decision processes and power structures of twenty-first-century capitalism have filtered into the UK higher education system and permeate the operation of quality assessment for both teaching and research, where, sponsored by government, the structures and processes – the ‘commanding heights’ – of policy development and delivery have been captured by a small elitist group of institutions. The result has been system inequity, process inefficiency and stress and risk to the mental health and well-being of research staff, as well as failure to meet desirable objectives.