University as the producer of knowledge, and economic and societal value: the 20th and twenty-first century transformations of the UK higher education system

Abstract

ABSTRACT Throughout the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first century, the UK higher education went through significant changes. We identify three epochs, through which the institutional logic and purpose of university were redefined: an elite reconfiguration before the 1950s; a democratic reconfiguration from the 1960s on; and an economic and societal reconfiguration in the context of globalization since the late 1990s. Each epoch carried certain tensions in them, which have shaped the current contours of the UK higher education field. Particularly since the 1990s however UK higher education is exposed to increasingly elaborate, and at times contradictory, rules and expectations which are shaped not only nationally and transnationally. In order to analyse how these pressures play themselves out in the purpose and mandate of universities, we apply topic modelling analysis and textual interpretation to the university webpages. Our analysis shows that the UK higher education embeds three institutional logics, knowledge production, economic value, and global actorhood, which are linked with the broader transformations of the university toward proactive and societally engaged rational organization.