The increasing emphasis on commercialization and market forces in modern universities is fundamentally at odds with core academic principles. Publicly funded academics have an obligation to carry out science for the public good, and this responsibility is not compatible with the entrepreneurial ethos increasingly expected of university research by governments and funding agencies.
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Acknowledgements
I acknowledge stimulating correspondence with James Wilsdon and Jack Stilgoe (Demos), Robert Doubleday (Cambridge University), Brian Wynne (Lancaster), Laurence Eaves, Michael Merrifield, Peter Milligan, Chris Satterley, Alison Mohr and Brigitte Nerlich (Nottingham), John Costello (Dublin City), and Richard Jones (Sheffield).
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Moriarty, P. Reclaiming academia from post-academia. Nature Nanotech 3, 60–62 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.11
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