Student as producer: an institution of the common? [or how to recover communist/revolutionary science]

Abstract

This paper presents the further development of the concept of student as producer from a project that seeks to radicalise the idea of the university by connecting research and teaching, to a vision of higher learning and revolutionary science based on the reconnection of the natural and the social sciences. The argument is sustained and developed by a critical engagement with classical texts in management studies as well as Marxist writing that has emerged out of the recent wave of student protests against the increasing privatisation and financialisation of higher education. The paper provides a case study where the natural and the social sciences are being brought together in a postgraduate research education programme at the University of Lincoln. The case study includes a debate about the essence of revolutionary science through an exposition of the work of two major revolutionary scientists, Robert Grosseteste (1170–1253) and Karl Marx (1811–1883).