The complexity of collaboration: Opportunities and challenges in contracted research

This article explores some of the challenges of utilising collaborative research approaches when undertaking contracted research projects for government and non-government agencies in the adult and community education (ACE) sector. To discuss these challenges, the article draws on three recent examples of research projects undertaken for ACE sector organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. These challenges include managing relationships with the different parties to the research; dealing with conflicting expectations of funding agencies, commissioning organisations and practitioners; and ownership and dissemination of findings. We highlight the complexity of notions of collaboration and the importance of deliberate trust-building in establishing credibility. We also open up for discussion the thorny issues of who owns the right to disseminate research findings and how far should researchers’ and universities’ responsibilities extend to ensure that research findings are put in the public domain

University continuing education in a neoliberal landscape: developments in England and Aotearoa New Zealand

This paper explores how changing higher education policies and funding, influenced by neoliberalism, are impacting on university adult and continuing education in England and Aotearoa New Zealand. The downhill trajectory of English university continuing education in the first decade of the twenty-first century is compared with the apparent buoyancy of the situation in New Zealand during the same period. The paper discusses some of the contextual factors which may have contributed to sustaining continuing education in New Zealand, against the tide of developments elsewhere, and in spite its subjection to the influence of neoliberal policies since the 1980s. These factors include: an ethos of public dissemination of knowledge, an acknowledgement of the universities’ role as ‘critic and conscience’ of society, a broad commitment to educational equality and an approach which has been strategic as well as pragmatic. The paper describes developments in one New Zealand continuing education department between 2006 and 2010 as it experiences further institutional and political change. The author concludes that, in spite of having demonstrated considerable resilience, the current structures and activities of continuing education departments in New Zealand are as fragile as they have been shown to be in England. Possible responses to the current situation are discussed and ‘radical hope’ (Brookfield 2005) is advocated as the university-based adult educators’ response in difficult times. Radical hope, founded on critical theory, involves recognising and challenging the assumptions of neoliberalism, as well as critical praxis (Carr and Kemmis 1986), and a reaffirmation on the part of academics and adult educators of the political nature of adult education (Freire 1972; Crowther et al 2005; Martin 2008; Wallace 2008)

System differentiation in England: the imposition of supply and demand

This chapter describes changing state and sector policy in relation to differentiation and how it has emerged in the English HE context: specifically, the attempts to concentrate the highest qualified applicants and the most prestigious institutions in a 'premium' market segment; the significance of the growing involvement of private providers; and the rise of the ‘student-as-consumer’ and 'value for money' in recent government policy discourse (e.g. the White Papers Students at the Heart of the System (DBIS 2011a) and Success as a Knowledge Economy (DBIS 2016). The chapter situates the development of a market hierarchy (in the form of a vertical differentiation of institutions, Archer 2007) following the demise of the university-polytechnic binary system in 1992 (Further and Higher Education Act, HMSO 1992). This co-existed for several years with the institutional diversity often celebrated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (e.g. HEFCE 1994; 2000) that can be conceptualised as the horizontal differentiation of valued types of higher education provision and provider (e.g. part-time or vocationally orientated). The introduction of market mechanisms, in various stages beginning with the 2004 Higher Education Act (DfES 2004) and the introduction of variable tuition fees, coincided with the publication of institutional league tables from 2005. Taken together, these have reinforced a hierarchical system in which all institutions and courses are henceforth differentiated only by reference to a set of criteria dominated by the entry requirements demanded, and the amount of research carried out by the institution. Given the implications of the most recent legislation – the Higher Education and Research Act (HMSO 2017) this hierarchy is likely to be matched by one signalled by tuition fee levels, as new cheaper 'challenger' institutions come to the market

Discourses of ‘Fair Access’ in English higher education: what do institutional statements tell us about university stratification and market positioning?

An analysis was conducted of the OFFA Access agreements and university publicity of eight universities in one English region. The HEIs comprised two ‘Russell Group’, one ‘Non-aligned’, three ‘Million Plus’ and two ‘Guild Group’ institutions. The analysis finds cautious, qualified and ambivalent responses from universities.This reflects policy uncertainty and confusion as well as mission group differences which are clearest between the Russell Group HEIs and the rest. The analysis also finds that widening participation language is used as a marketing tool and that OFFA is failing to police Access Agreements

Fair access and fee setting in English universities: what do institutional statements suggest about university strategies in a stratified quasi-market?

This paper explores how English universities operating in a ‘quasi-market’ are managing the tension between two policy expectations: the first that they should encourage social mobility by widening the social base of their student population; the second that they should compete with other universities to attract students and thereby remain financially viable, within the context of a stratified higher education system. In doing so we draw on widening participation access agreements submitted to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) and other publicly available material produced by eight universities in one region of England to analyse how universities from different mission groups are responding to these conflicting demands. We explore the extent to which institutional and resource dependency theories offer a framework for analysing universities’ responses to such policy uncertainty. We conclude that while institutional and resource dependency theories are a useful tool to understanding both conformity and variation in universities’ responses, these responses are difficult to predict without also analysing the specifics of the historical and cultural context of any particular institution