Abstract

This article discusses the intensification of research performance demands in UK universities in relation to the complex terrain of academic identity formation. It considers whether a demand for academic researchers to produce and evidence economic and societal impact – in the rewards game of the UK’s performance-based research funding system, the Research Excellence Framework (REF) – influences their self-concept as ‘engaged researchers’. While a designation of being REF impactful may be considered constitutive to a researcher’s sense of self-worth and advantageous to their professional and institutional profile, a consultation of researchers included within REF2014 impact case studies challenges these assumptions. Instead, respondents are found to complain of identity dispossession and exploitation by their universities where their public contributions are appropriated for positional gain. Their testimony confirms the prevalence of a culture of ‘competitive accountability’ across UK universities which is with a systemic insatiability for ‘scholarly distinction’, causing the privileging of appearance in rationalisations of publicly funded research. Using the theoretical insights of Guy Debord and Erving Goffman it is argued that REF impact elucidates the UK higher education sector as a ‘society of the Spectacle’ that subjugates ‘authentic’ versions of the academic Self. However, REF-impact is also seen to provide an opportunity for cultural detournément and a means to elicit and concurrently invert ‘simulations’ of research praxis’, thus enabling the assertion or ‘front-staging’ of perceived and idealised academic identities.

摘要

本文讨论了与大学身份形成的复杂地形有关的英国大学对研究绩效的要求不断提高。它考虑了对学术研究人员产生并证明经济和社会影响的需求（在英国基于绩效的研究资助系统“卓越研究框架”（REF）的奖励游戏中）是否会影响他们作为“敬业研究人员”的自我观念。尽管可以认为对REF有影响力对研究者的自我价值感具有构成意义，并且对他们的专业和机构形象有利，但REF2014影响案例研究中包括的研究人员咨询对这些假设提出了挑战。代替，被调查者抱怨他们的大学滥用身份，并利用其公共捐助来获取职位。他们的证词证实了英国大学普遍存在“竞争性问责制”文化，这种文化对“学者区别”具有系统性的不满足感，从而导致公共资助研究的合理化出现了特权。利用盖伊·德伯德（Guy Debord）和欧文·高夫曼（Erving Goffman）的理论洞察力，认为REF的影响阐明了英国高等教育部门是一个“奇观社会”，它压制了学术“自我”的“真实”版本。但是，REF-impact还被认为为文化绕道提供了机会，并且是引发并同时反转“研究实践”的“模拟”的手段，