Synopses & Reviews
British science has undergone radical transformation during the past 20 years. This is less a result of scientific discoveries per se, but rather the structure of funding and institutions. Science used to occupy a discrete socio-economic space. Scientists enjoyed the privileges of status and funding in return for the generation of knowledge. This knowledge is now regarded as a commodified product or a set of commercialized relationships. This book aims to explain the transformation of science in the UK public sector through detailed analysis of the main Government Research establishments since 1979.
Synopsis
By the 1980s, UK government research laboratories were an often quirky but always essential part of the state sector. In one of the most radical experiments in the organization and management of scientific research attempted in the UK, successive Conservative governments sought to reform these laboratories by applying the market-based solution of 'New Public Management'. Scrutinising Science explores and critiques that reform process by examining the laboratories' new organizational forms, the new visions of what science is for implicit in the reform agenda and the new forms of scientific knowledge production that have arisen as a consequence.
About the Author
Rebecca Boden is Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Sheffield University Management School.
Philip Gummett, Katherine Barker and Deborah Cox are all at the University of Manchester.
Table of Contents
Foreword--L.Georghiou * The Changing Nature of Scientific Organization * Historical Context * New Public Management * The Organization of Science * Science and Markets * Scientific Knowledge Production Processes * Lab Reports * The Future of Science
The Changing Nature of Scientific Organization * Contexts * Policies of Reform * New Organizational Forms * Barriers to Change * Customers, Contractors and Shared Visions * Performance Indicators and Quality Management * Accounting, Accountability and Governance