Intellectual Property, Higher Education, and Women's Inequality: Exploring Connections / Proposing Solutions

This paper explores multiple ways in which intellectual property rights may undermine women's/feminists' ability to work in and through the liberal university in order to serve their interests and needs. It also provides a discussion of strategies to resist current trends and to preserve, perhaps enhance, the university's potential to advance the feminist project.Cet article explore les differentes facons par lesquelles les droits de la propriete intellectuelle pourraient amoindrir l'habilete des femmes a travailler par l'entremise d'une universitd liberate afm de voir a leurs interets et a leurs besoins. II offre aussi une discussion sur les strategies a adopter pour resister aux tendances courantes et pour preserver, peut-etre mSme rehausser le potentiel pour faire avancer le projet feministe

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

From Public Resource to Industry's Instrument: Reshaping the Production of Knowledge in Canada's Universities

Abstract: The ongoing subordination of academic research to the needs of industry is a matter of growing concern to people both within and outside of Canada's universities. However, while the costs of university/industry links are increasingly well understood, the ways in which these links are being accomplished as a practical matter are not. This paper explores the complex reorganizational process in and through which control over our universities' research resources is being progressively ceded to industry. Its main focus is on how recent federal activities related to academic research both contribute and respond to this transformation. The analysis reveals how the benefits and use of our universities' research resources are being privatized, while the costs of academic research are still largely borne by the Canadian public. The implications of the new politics of university research, particularly for strategies to resist the conversion of academic research from a public resource to industry's private instrument, are addressed in the paper's final section. Résumé: La subordination continue de la recherche académique aux besoins de l'industrie est une question de plus en plus préoccupante, autant pour ceux au sein des universités canadiennes qu'à l'extérieur de celles-ci. Or, bien que nous soyons de plus en plus conscients du coût de tels rapports entre université et industrie, nous ne comprenons pas comment en pratique on est en train d'exploiter ces rapports. Cet article explore le processus complexe de réorganisation qui nous mène à céder à l'industrie le contrôle des ressources de recherche universitaires. L'objectif principal de cet article est d'examiner comment des activités fédérales récentes se rapportant à la recherche académique contribuent et répondent à cette transformation. L'analyse révèle comment on est en train de privatiser les bénéfices et l'utilisation des ressources de recherche universitaires, en même temps que le public canadien continue en grande partie à subventionner cette recherche. Les implications des nouvelles politiques sur la recherche universitaire, particulièrement en ce qui regarde la conversion de la recherche académique d'une ressource publique en instrument privé de l'industrie, sont adressées dans la section finale de cet article

Reclaiming Our Centre: Towards a Robust Defence of Academic Autonomy

In recent years, the autonomy of academics in many countries has been progressively undermined by a number of local, national and international developments. The purpose of this paper is to reveal how academic autonomy is being infringed. It aims also to critique the ways in which academics have been responding – both individually and collectively – to these infringements. Specifically, we argue that the ways in which academics have been defending against the erosion of their autonomy actually serves to further advance this process. We attribute this paradox to academics’ impoverished conception of professional autonomy and reassert a more robust conception and practice of academic autonomy as a means of remedying the situation

Toward an Alternative Future for Canada’s Corporatized Universities

Toward an Alternative Future for Canada’s Corporatized Universitie