Most people who work and study in universities will be aware that they are changing. Yet few have so far grasped the extent of this change or have attempted to put it in a coherent intellectual framework. This volume provides new ways to understand how the university workforce in developed nations is being encouraged to change itself, and how the social role of these institutions has shifted from places of higher learning toward being agents for social change and the promotion of human welfare. Moreover the demands that are being placed on institutions and the kinds of graduates they are required to produce has changed too, with the emphasis on a new brand of vocationalism and a reinvigorated focus on skills and employability. This volume provides a theoretically informed, philosophically sophisticated account of what universities in developed nations are being encouraged to do, and the impact this has on their staff, students and the societies of which they are a part.

Research in higher education could be more useful, innovative and better designed if we were clearer about the philosophical and epistemological basis of the theories that underlie our research methods. People who have to interpret research would do a better job if they were able to interrogate research more critically and appreciate its strengths and weaknesses. This volume provides this information for an audience of researchers, policymakers, students and lecturers in higher education. The authors seek to create a dialogue with the reader about issues relevant to the philosophy of research and stimulate interest in how philosophy plays out in the real, everyday, political world, not least in education. Unlike many existing volumes on the market, this book creates a space in which readers can use the tools for thinking that the authors describe to interrogate their own experience.