Audit Culture and Academic Production: Re-Shaping Australian Social Science Research Output (1993–2013)

Abstract

The perceptible rise of an audit culture has had marked effects in higher education, including in Australia. Since their introduction in the early 1990s, academic audits have grown in size and sophistication, consuming ever more time, energy, and financial resources. While supported by both governments and institutional leaders, this study reveals that the effects have significantly distorted the academic mission. Drawing on a systematic analysis of academic outputs in two fields (Education, and Anthropology) for the years 1993, 2003, and 2013, as well as individual interviews, the analysis underlines the fracturing of the profession, including gender dimensions, and a trend toward publication in highly ranked international journals. For an English-language system that is increasingly integrated into the Asia-Pacific, with a diverse academic staff, the effects are complex, and not entirely uniform. But overall, the effects have been to devalue collegiality, in the interests of reshaping academics into self-monitoring subjects.