Can university leaders effectively promote research on complex societal challenges? : a change-agency perspective
(2023) In Higher Education Policy- Abstract
In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable in addressing societal challenges, because the problems associated with them are usually large-scale, complex and interdisciplinary. In light of this seeming paradox, we revisit the question of how—and on which theoretical grounds—universities may still be able to develop suitable internal governance mechanisms that allow them to address complex societal challenges effectively. Because... (More)
In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable in addressing societal challenges, because the problems associated with them are usually large-scale, complex and interdisciplinary. In light of this seeming paradox, we revisit the question of how—and on which theoretical grounds—universities may still be able to develop suitable internal governance mechanisms that allow them to address complex societal challenges effectively. Because university leaders are usually unable to coerce individual researchers to address such challenges in their research simply through their bureaucratic powers, we will argue that university leaders can, however, leverage individual researchers' agency to deviate from routine and disciplinary practice by developing novel or legitimising existing interdisciplinary scripts necessary to deal with such societal problems. Specifically, we outline that university managements can create a dual role consisting of the communication of legitimising interdisciplinary research on societal challenges, as well as providing for the necessary degree of interdisciplinary coordination by convening researchers around these topics.
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- author
- Kroll, Henning and Schubert, Torben LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-03-14
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- in press
- subject
- keywords
- Change-agency, Governance, Interdisciplinary, Societal challenges, University
- in
- Higher Education Policy
- pages
- 18 pages
- publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85149988248
- pmid:37360955
- ISSN
- 0952-8733
- DOI
- 10.1057/s41307-023-00307-2
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Funding Information: The authors acknowledge funding for this research received from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant number 01PH20010 (StratGov). Also, they acknowledge valuable perspectives offered by two anonymous reviewers.
- id
- 4935e89b-1c75-480c-9b82-cecd0a37bff5
- date added to LUP
- 2023-03-23 06:41:58
- date last changed
- 2024-04-16 03:17:54
@article{4935e89b-1c75-480c-9b82-cecd0a37bff5,
abstract = {{<p>In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable in addressing societal challenges, because the problems associated with them are usually large-scale, complex and interdisciplinary. In light of this seeming paradox, we revisit the question of how—and on which theoretical grounds—universities may still be able to develop suitable internal governance mechanisms that allow them to address complex societal challenges effectively. Because university leaders are usually unable to coerce individual researchers to address such challenges in their research simply through their bureaucratic powers, we will argue that university leaders can, however, leverage individual researchers' agency to deviate from routine and disciplinary practice by developing novel or legitimising existing interdisciplinary scripts necessary to deal with such societal problems. Specifically, we outline that university managements can create a dual role consisting of the communication of legitimising interdisciplinary research on societal challenges, as well as providing for the necessary degree of interdisciplinary coordination by convening researchers around these topics.</p>}},
author = {{Kroll, Henning and Schubert, Torben}},
issn = {{0952-8733}},
keywords = {{Change-agency; Governance; Interdisciplinary; Societal challenges; University}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
publisher = {{Palgrave Macmillan}},
series = {{Higher Education Policy}},
title = {{Can university leaders effectively promote research on complex societal challenges? : a change-agency perspective}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41307-023-00307-2}},
doi = {{10.1057/s41307-023-00307-2}},
year = {{2023}},
}