1st Edition

Universities and Innovation Economies The Creative Wasteland of Post-Industrial Society

By Peter Murphy Copyright 2015
    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    Students drop out of universities in large numbers, many graduate to jobs that do not require a degree and a large number learn little at university, whilst graduate salaries have shrunk over time and student loan debt and default have grown. University research achievements have declined while university administration has expanded massively. The contemporary university is mired in auditing, regulation, waste and aimlessness and its contribution to serious social innovation has deteriorated markedly. The miserable state of the universities reflects a larger social reality, as bureaucratic capitalism has replaced creative capitalism. Universities and Innovation Economies examines the rise and fall of the mass university and post-industrial society, considering how we might revitalize economic and intellectual creativity. Looking to a much more inventive social and economic paradigm to drive long-term growth, the author argues for a smaller, leaner, more effective university model - one capable of delivering a greater degree of high-level discovery and creative power. A potent critique of the post-industrial mass university that urges a reimagination of universities as places of discovery and invention, this book will appeal to readers interested in higher education, creativity, social theory, the sociology of work and organisations, political economy, pedagogy and public policy.

    Universities and Innovation Economies

    Biography

    Peter Murphy is Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University, Australia.. He is the author of The Collective Imagination, and Civic Justice and co-author of Dialectic of Romanticism, Creativity and the Global Knowledge Economy, Global Creation, and Imagination.