In this blog post, we want to share our different perspective on ‘space’ in higher education studies. One afternoon, while discussing a recent policy change in Taiwan and wrapping up our previous project, we came across the Higher Education SPROUT Project (HESP). This policy aims to respond to the issues arising from a longstanding emphasis on top-tier journal publications and global rankings through encouraging universities to step out of academic isolation and engage meaningfully with schools, local governments and communities. The goal is for universities to become indispensable by addressing local needs, solving relevant problems, and promoting regional integration (MOE, 2017). Under the HESP mechanism, universities are redirected from pursuing high performance in global rankings towards identifying real-world problems, pinpointing local demands, and devising place-based solutions. This shift opens new discussions about university accountability and the spatial dimension of governance.

This prompted us to question the routine use of the ‘local’ in higher education studies, a trend increasingly visible worldwide, and to ponder ‘What does the local or global really mean?’ These geographical or spatial elements of policy are so taken for granted and treated as self-evident. In Taiwan, ‘global’ ranking and ‘local’ community are considered as just a backdrop for social actions or as a simple hierarchical ordering (local, regional, national and global) for the changes that occur.

To think differently, we began engaging with a ‘critical spatial lens’ (see also Gulson & Symes, 2007), moving away from the habit of treating ‘spatial element’ as context simply for policies (Marginson, 2022; Webb & Fulson, 2015). Inspired by Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault, 1991), we started seeing space not as a fixed geographical area, but as an evolving concept shaped by social relations, practices and power dynamics (see also Huxley, 2016). We therefore saw that the shift from ‘global’ to ‘local’ appears both as the outcome of political activities and a contribution to them.

Since space is no longer treated as a pre-existing entity for policy, our curiosity was piqued: ‘How is “the local” constituted as a “reality” that shapes the way universities are governed?’ To explore this, we conducted interviews with policymakers and university executive teams and analysed documents related to HESP. We found that constructing the ‘local’ involves meticulous administrative procedure, where universities must document their local engagements – through reference materials, meeting minutes and stakeholder consultations – to ensure that they are genuinely addressing local needs. These detailed administrative procedures and funding assessment frameworks mandating university engagement with local communities can be seen as strategies of spatial governance that operationalise the rationalisation of ‘meeting real-world demands’. By configuring the policies’ metrics, procedures, policy tools and tactics to deliver social services to local communities, the universities make the governing rationality presented within higher education policies concrete and operable.

While universities demonstrated their ability to solve social problems, ‘knowledge’ became a matter of determining the role of solvers and solution-expectants and establishing the spatial boundary between them. This ‘knowledge’ steered universities to identify and categorise ‘problems’ within specific geographic spaces and then propose solutions for the geographic entities they collaborated with. This formation of partnerships also presents spatialisation of the ‘local’ and territorialisation of ‘local community’, which in turn contribute to the self-governance of universities, with respect to their social responsibility, and the self-governance was further intensified by the impetus of competition-driven funding mechanisms. The ‘local’ as a reshaped space was not simply confined to the ability to problem-solve; it also embodied the ethical forces that shaped universities to belong to specific locales, compelling them to ensure their development.

‘We found that the perceptions of the “local” and “local communities” are largely shaped by the “knowledge” universities employ to foster collaborations aimed at securing competitive funding.’

In conclusion, let’s revisit our initial question: ‘What does the local or global really mean?’ Through a critical spatial lens, our study challenges the assumption that the local community is simply the geographic area surrounding universities. Instead, we found that the perceptions of the ‘local’ and ‘local communities’ are largely shaped by the ‘knowledge’ universities employ to foster collaborations aimed at securing competitive funding. This finding underscores the need to incorporate spatial dimensions into the traditionally time-focused analysis of social relations and material formations. By doing so, we can better explore the often-overlooked relationships between universities and the broader societies.

This blog post relates to a paper presented at the BERA Conference 2024 and WERA Focal Meeting on Wednesday 11 September at 9:00am. Find out more by searching the conference programme here.

References

Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.). The Foucault effect (pp. 87–104). University of Chicago Press.

Gulson, K., & Symes, C. (2007). Knowing one’s place: Space, theory, education. Critical Studies in Education, 48(1), 97–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508480601123750

Huxley, M. (2016). Geographies of governmentality. In S. Elden (Eds.). Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography (pp. 185–204). Taylor & Francis Group.

Marginson S. (2022). Space and scale in higher education: The glonacal agency heuristic revisited. Higher Education, 84, 1356–1395. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00955-0

Ministry of Education [MOE]. (2017). Higher education SPROUT project.    https://sprout.moe.edu.tw/en-us/school_achievement.aspx?fid=71&id=981  

Webb, P. T., & Gulson, N. K. (2015). Policy, geography and education. Sense Publishers.