Geopolitical Transformations in Higher Education: Imagining, Fabricating and Contesting Innovation

This book discusses the central role education and research play in generating both value and comparative advantages in the (imageries of) global competition, competitiveness and transnational value chains. They are seen as assets placed at the forefront of developments that are arguably reshaping individuals, society and economy. This edited volume explores these developments in terms of changing relations between society, economy, science and individuals.

The idea that we live in global knowledge societies and knowledge-based economies or that present-day productive systems constitute an industry 4.0 have gained currency as descriptions of contemporary society that are said to bear direct and indirect consequences for political, economic, and social orders. In this context, innovation, science and education are central themes in contemporary discussions about the future of modern societies. Innovation is enthusiastically embraced as the panacea for all sorts of societal issues of our times; science is equally deemed to play a decisive role in solving current problems and in heralding a bright future with more wealth and more welfare for all citizens; education is conferred the task to producing individuals equipped with both skills and competences considered key to innovation but also displaying the attitudes and dispositions that will secure continuous innovation and economic growth.

Marcelo Parreira do Amaral teaches and researches in the field Comparative and International Education, Education Policy Studies, Lifelong Learning and Education Institutions. His current research focuses international educational policy and governance issues at various levels and scales. More recently, his work concentrated on the emergence and expansion of a Global Education Industry (GEI) and on how it is transforming conceptualizations of 'good' education. His research on (new) providers and policy actors within education aims at analyzing the possible consequences for education research, policy and practice. Beyond discerning particular expressions and manifestations of the GEI phenomenon in international contexts, it also looks into the rationales, processes and impacts of the GEI developments on education systems. He has collaborated to and coordinated several national and international research projects. From 2016 to 2019, he coordinated the European project "YOUNG ADULLLT" (Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course. A Comparative Perspective of Lifelong Learning and Inclusion in Education and Work in Europe, www.young-adulllt.eu), funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Research Framework. Parreira do Amaral is also member of NESET II (Network of Experts on the Social Aspects of Education) funded by the European Commission.

Christiane Thompson teaches and researches in the field of History, Philosophy and Theory of Bildung, Education, and Learning. Her current research focuses on the educational processes of subjectivation in the context of a globalized world, including the emergence and expansion of a Global Education Industry (GEI). Particularly, her research aims at analyzing the ongoing conceptual shifts initiated by the economization and marketization of education - and the corresponding consequences for the theory, practice and research of education. This analysis is framed by a perspective that draws on cultural theory and cultural research of education. Between 2010-2014, Christiane Thompson held a Heisenberg research professorship in this area, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In the context of this research agenda, she placed and places particular emphasis on the analysis of educational processes at the crossing point of power, language, and culture. Currently, she is working on the topic of "academic freedom" - in a project also funded by the German Research Foundation. The project brings into view how the freedom of academic speech is prefigured, formed and limited in a university that is increasingly determined by neoliberal forces.