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GWO 16: Stream on "Scientific Excellence and Gender Change: Managerialism and Newly Emerging Science Policy"

  • 1.  GWO 16: Stream on "Scientific Excellence and Gender Change: Managerialism and Newly Emerging Science Policy"

    Posted 09-08-2015 09:23
    Dear colleagues,
    I am sending our call for abstracts for a stream at the 2016 GWO conference: "Scientific Excellence and Gender Change: Managerialism and Newly Emerging Science Policy"

    9th Biennial International Interdisciplinary conference, 29th June-1st July, 2016
    Keele University, UK

    Looking forward to recieving your abstracts!





    GWO2016 Call for Abstracts



    Scientific Excellence and Gender Change: Managerialism and Newly Emerging Science Policy

    Stream convenors:        
    Johanna Hofbauer, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), AUSTRIA
    Heike Kahlert, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum (RUB), GERMANY
    Julia Nentwich, University of St. Gallen, SWITZERLAND

    Currently the global academic world is being re-organized according to the competitive logic of the global marketplace. This restructuring process has a number of far-reaching implications for the governance of the higher education system and the management of its organizations, for the working conditions of academic and non-academic personnel, for scientific knowledge production as well as for the education of students. Furthermore, these effects are gendered, not only in terms of equal opportunities and gender policies, but also with respect to knowledge production in relation to gender and the institutionalization of gender studies. Accordingly, the relevance of gender equality in academia has been on the agenda of political elites for quite some time. It is promoted by many programs and measurements in research organizations and political institutions such as the European Union or research funding organizations. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the ways that contemporary scientific organizations are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from international and national policy requirements according to gender equality and how this is linked to demands for improving scientific and organizational excellence.

    Moreover, working conditions in academia have changed considerably over the last decades. Besides general effects of the internationalisation of the labour market in academia and the creation of an European Higher Education Area, the governance of universities has changed significantly. Universities have adopted managerial governance models in the spirit of New Public Management. Likewise scientific careers are not only challenged by a higher demand for mobility which impacts on the possibilities of reconciling academic and private live, but there are also new ways of measuring performance or "scientific excellence", as well as the introduction of new payment structures. As a consequence, the current restructuring of higher education institutions in the light of the 'managerial university' does not only impact internal organisational structures, processes and practices and their relations to external actors; it also involves significant changes in the production of scientific knowledge and thus, in scientific knowledge itself. Scientific knowledge is no longer considered as being free from societal, political and economic influences.  Instead it is being challenged to be useful for societal, political and economic aims. This is also true for gender studies that have for the longest time been a site for critical and innovative knowledge development.

    The purpose of the stream is to help advance our understanding of how the current changes in the development of scientific excellence, gender equality and the significant changes in academic governance mutually shape and produce new ways of working, knowing and living in academia. We invite submissions from the international research community that can help create theoretically informed, multidisciplinary understandings of the issues affecting the structural and cultural meanings of academic governance with respect to science policies, scientific work and careers, knowledge production and organizational practices. Contributions are welcome in any of the following or related themes:
    ·        Science policies – research that investigates gender equality and/or excellence in policy making on national and international levels and the translation of the policy measures to universities and other scientific organizations.
    ·        Science organizations and organizing science - research that investigates organizational practices of performing or resisting the major developments towards competition, managerialism, enhancing scientific excellence and fostering gender equality.
    ·        Scientific work and careers – research that investigates the structuring, meaning and changing of academic labour on all career levels within scientific organizations.
    ·        Scientific knowledge production - research that investigates the meaning of gender, also in combination with other inequalities, in the knowledge production and delivering process.

    Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF, single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes) are invited by 1st November 2015 with decisions on acceptance to be made by stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. In the case of co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding author. Note that due to restrictions of space, multiple submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be emailed in the first instance to contact point Heike Kahlert    heike.kahlert@rub.de   Abstracts should include FULL contact details, including your name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which you are submitting your abstract. *Note that no funding, fee waiver, travel or other bursaries are offered for attendance at GWO2016*.

    Prof. Dr. Julia Nentwich



    OPSY-HSG
    Universität St.Gallen | Girtannerstr. 6 | CH-9010 St.Gallen

    Tel. +41 (0)71 224 26 36 | Fax  +41 (0)71 224 70 43 | Mobile  +41 (0)78 808 02 03
    julia.nentwich@unisg.ch | www.opsy.unisg.ch

    Save the date: Research Workshop 'Translating Organizational Change'

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