TRIPLE HELIX noms.pmd

P-055Academic entrepreneurship in the era of "growth politics"Malin Rönnblom, Britt-Inger Keisu, Umeå University, SwedenLena Abrahamsson, Ylva Fältholm, Luleå University of Technology, SwedenEntrepreneurship, commodification and globalized markets are prominent parts of contemporary political culture, often connectedto sustainable (economic) growth as an overarching political goal. In this process, the role and positions of the universities arechanging, going from more autonomous "ivory towers of knowledge production" to being important parts of the "triple helixnexus" in order to contribute to the goal of sustainable (economic) growth. Of course the academy always has producedknowledge in relation to state and society and we do not regard the past of the universities as a past of "freedom from outsidepressure". Instead, this transition must be traced to the more fundamental changes of the forms and goals of politics.Simultaneously with these changes, "gender" has entered the academy in two ways, as the growing discipline of genderstudies and as the political demand for "increased gender equality".In this paper the ambition is to put the quite recent phenomena academic entrepreneurship in a broader context, highlighting thehow the shift in politics - roughly put and drawing on the work of Chantal Mouffe (2005) - a shift from conflict to moral where thecitizen are transformed into a consumer (see also the work of Nicholas Rose 1999). We argue that the increased emphasis onentrepreneurship and commercialised research results need to be analysed in a similar way. The shift in politics from conflict tomoral could in the academic setting be seen as a shift in how "good knowledge" is conceived. In order words, we argue for theneed of highlighting what happens with "knowledge" when an entrepreneur discourse enters the academy and when the academyas an organisation is steered by tools departing from the idea of new public management. Departing from how Michel Foucault(1980) ties knowledge to power, the paper applies the recent shifts in politics as a way of understanding how the discourse ofacademic entrepreneurship has been produced. In our analysis, we will both relate to the theoretical discussions on epistemologyin feminist scholarship and the power at play when "excellence and good research" are defined. We will also scrutinise howgender and gender equality are produced in the discussions of academic entrepreneurship. The paper will draw both on earlierresearch and on policy analysis of steering documents from two Swedish universities, Luleå University of Technology and UmeåUniversity.References:- Foucault, Michel (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977, New York: Pantheon Books.- Mouffe, Chantal (2005) On the Political, Abingdon: Routledge- Rose, Nikolas (1999) Powers of Freedom, Cambridge University Press: CambridgeMadrid, October 20, 21 & 22 - 2010285