Future Directions for Higher Education Policy Research

Conclusion

Although the general picture drawn in this paper is not wholly discouraging in terms of research receptivity, the potential lessons for researcher behaviour that might lead to a more positive receptor function are not easy to identify. The broad conclusion is in fact virtually a tautology — that attempts to secure a mutually fruitful relationship might produce a better relationship. Where reception is good it may also depend upon the accident of whether the research chimes in with the Zeitgeist and whether the receptors are recruited from those who are likely to be predisposed towards research.

The relationship of systematically and publicly funded research to government may, however, not hold completely true for other forms of research and scholarship. Private foundations still remain capable of funding independent research, and there is no evidence that that is less or more effective in influencing policy than that funded by government. Bodies such as the OECD in effect domesticate research findings in a form that had an effect in perhaps less sceptical days on governmental acceptance of the findings of the relationship between higher education and the economy or the capacity of education to advance social ends such as equality. And percolative or contaminative effects of research can be assumed, if not demonstrated.

A substantial part of this paper is contained or foreshadowed in Maurice Kogan Higher Education, a paper given at the OECD-CERI Conference, May 1998, Paris, on Production and Use of Knowledge in the Education and Health Sectors. An earlier version was delivered at the Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Kassel, 1998.