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Higher Education Inc.: The Personal and Professional Dilemmas of Environmental Educators Undertaking Research With/For Private Corporations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Julie Davis  and
Jo-Anne Ferreira
Julie Davis*
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
Jo-Anne Ferreira
Affiliation:
Griffith University
*
†Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, QLD 4069, Australia. Email: j.davis@qut.edu.au
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Abstract

We are living in an era of market-driven, globalised economies characterised by reduced public investments in what, until now, have been considered public goods and services. In Australia and elsewhere, education, and higher education in particular, has seen steady declines in government funding. This has prompted universities to become much more entrepreneurial and to seek out new funding opportunities to support their teaching and research activities. This paper reflects on the personal and professional dilemmas and challenges we faced as two early career environmental education researchers who were commissioned to undertake research for a private corporation. As a result of issues raised during this process, we engaged in a critical reflection of our perceptions and feelings about our involvement in the project. In essence, dilemmas and challenges centred around two issues: (1) control/ ownership of the research; and (2) the clash between corporate and university values. This paper explores these issues and suggests that greater mindfulness on the part of individual researchers as well as the development of better university-corporate partnership processes and protocols might provide useful starting points for overcoming such dilemmas and for moving forward with university-corporate research partnerships.

Keywords

globalisationcommercialisationhigher educationenvironmental education researchuniversity-corporation partnershipsvaluesethicsownershipearly career researchers
Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , 2006 , pp. 39 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006 

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