Contesting academic expertise: Industry-focused funding regimes

Government/Public funding is central to the organisation and structure of universities, and therefore the status of experts and expertise within universities. This paper critically assesses how academic expertise is contested in and through the Australian Government’s National Priorities Industry Linkage Fund (NPILF), as part of the Job-ready Graduate Package. The NPILF distributes public funding for higher education based on industry-aligned activities, emphasising the development of the job-ready graduate and the role of industry in universities. This is consistent with global trends that indicate an increasingly narrow and commercially oriented mission of universities. Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptualisations of ‘field’ and ‘symbolic violence’ the paper offers insights around the implications of public funding for how academic expertise is generated (by whom, for whom). The NPILF, we argue, represents a significant contestation of ‘expertise’ with consequences for academics, students, and society. Of particular concern is how the NPILF, and similar funding arrangements, limit the provision of expertise to narrow, commercial interests.