The Academy is an important site for the production of knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But surprisingly, little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands of national policy requirements, particularly performance measures.

What are the effects of these policies on individual universities and academics working within them? While politics certainly affects institutions and academics, there are many other things that make up academic life. The starting point of this book is that there are three main shaping forces that govern the academic community - intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions, and research policy. Together with all three levels in a framework, this book explores how the academic community, both formally and informally, can bridge the different aspects of knowledge-based networks through a large multi-country study.

Writer Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the wide disciplinary areas of humanities, social sciences and science to demonstrate the application of the analytical framework. The book also provides some guidance on what policy should be done and what can be done, and provide a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the point of view of academics on the front line..

I want that book.