Turning universities into actors on quasi-markets: How new public management reforms affect academic research

Abstract

The article explores the consequences of New Public Management (NPM) reforms for academic research based on case studies in two fields of research (medieval history and red biotechnology) in four European countries (Austria, England, Germany, The Netherlands). Our findings show that – contrary to expectations inspired by neo-institutionalism – shifts in governance towards NPM do matter. According to our discussion of NPM-reforms at work a number of hypotheses on their effects are put forward: NPM is likely to strengthen external steering of research while reducing academic autonomy, is likely to decrease the variety pool of academic research, to encourage increasing productivity as well as short-termism of academic research, is unlikely to strengthen the relevance and user orientation of academic research, and likely to push towards a de-coupling of research and teaching.