Tourism studies and the changing research ecosystem

Abstract

This conceptual paper scrutinises the ‘research impact’ of the impact agenda by Western governments, in terms of what it is doing to the research process as a whole. Tourism studies with its specific intricacies and disputed disciplinary status represents the focal point, but the argument extends to the entire research ecosystem as a whole. In specific, the paper addresses changes to the training regime of early career researchers. The created survivor bias of impact claims becomes the basis of scholarly career progression. How the accounting and narrating of research impact claims represents a new workload requirement for scholars. The challenges in identifying and articulating impact claims in the first place, and last but not least, the power dimension and political conflicts that arise in who has the authority to label impact claims as beneficial in the first place. The paper’s discussion focuses on the short, medium and long-term consequences of these changes to the scholarly lives. With the conclusion, that whilst the created vulnerabilities to the authority of [tourism] research claims are real, such developments also represents a viable opportunity to reassess, revalue and acknowledge parts of the research process that were normalised and/or trivialised in the past.