British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Who's Creating Knowledge? The challenge of non-university researchers

The British Academy in partnership with Queen's University, Belfast

This event has been organised as part of the Economic and Social Research Council's
Festival of Social Science 2007

A panel discussion with Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, University of London,
Mike Heyworth, Director, British Council for Archaeology, and
Dorothy Noyes, College of Humanities, Ohio State University

Chairman: Ruth Finnegan, FBA, Open University

This event will take place at Great Hall, Queen's University, Belfast

6pm to 7.30pm, Wednesday, 14 March 2007

Is the university the primary site for the creation and authorising of knowledge? That is commonly the conventional view. But in practice a vast amount of research is also conducted not only in the corporate sector but also - a particular focus here - by the large numbers of independent researchers enthusiastically engaged in the production and establishment of knowledge outside university walls. The panel will discuss in particular the issues raised by the work of these often 'invisible' creators of knowledge, operating as they do across a wide diversity of fields of research, from family history to ornithology, astronomy to biography, philosophy to archaeology - and much else. Do such researchers between them present a challenge to the still often-assumed monopoly of the university over the production and validation of knowledge? Despite the obstacles they face are they perhaps following a more open route to knowledge production than in the increasingly constrained setting of university research today? Do we need to rethink the central role of the university in the establishment of knowledge? And may important new processes of knowledge-creation be emerging through the interactive potential of the internet for bypassing established university controls and evading the traditional gatekeepers to the publication and dissemination of knowledge?

Location

Great Hall, Queen's University is situated in the Lanyon Building, which is the main university building on University Road, Belfast BT7 (see downloadable map). The entrance to the Great Hall will be signposted on the evening. Car parking is available in the general area of Queen's, and it may be possible to accommodate some limited parking on the main campus.

For further information about this event, please contact Barbara Groves, Queen's University Belfast (b.groves@qub.ac.uk), telephone: 028 9097 5340

This event followed up a panel discussion, with the same title, held at the British Academy on 27 June 2006.