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Abstract Policy conceptualizations of the global knowledge economy have led to the channelling of much Higher Education and Research and Development funding into the priority areas of science and technology. Among other things, this diversion of funding calls into question the future of traditional humanities and creative arts faculties. How these faculties, and the disciplines within them, might reconfigure themselves for the knowledge economy is, therefore, a question of great importance, although one that as yet has not been adequately answered. This paper explores some of the reasons for this by looking at how innovation in the knowledge economy is typically theorized. It takes one policy trajectory informing Australia's key innovation statement as an example. It argues that, insofar as the formation of this knowledge economy policy has been informed by a techno‐economic paradigm, it works to preclude many humanities and creative arts disciplines. This paper, therefore, looks at how an alternative theorization of the knowledge economy might offer a more robust framework from within which to develop humanities and creative arts Higher Education and Research policy in the knowledge economy, both in Australia and internationally. Notes * Corresponding author: Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures, University of South Australia, Holbrooks Road, Underdale SA 5038, Australia. Email: elizabeth.bullen@unisa.edu.au This article draws on the Australian Research Council project, Knowledge/economy/society: a sociological study of an education policy discourse in Australia in globalising circumstances, being conducted by Jane Kenway, Elizabeth Bullen and Simon Robb. This 3‐year project looks at how understandings of the knowledge economy and knowledge society inform current education policy and, in turn, how this policy translates into educational practice. The methodology includes policy analysis, interviews with policy makers in government, and supranational organizations. It also includes cameo studies of innovative educational practice, two of which we draw on here. Here, we use the term knowledge economy, but acknowledge the use of variants including the new economy, knowledge society, information economy/society, and others. For an overview of the impact of globalization and knowledge economy policy on education systems, see Kenway et al. (Citation2003). The arts and humanities encompass a raft of disciplines and we are aware of the inability of this paper to respond to the specificity of each. We are, indeed, aware of the difficulties of speaking of the performing, applied, and media arts in the same breath as we do Classical Greek Studies or English Studies. For the purposes of this paper, we consider humanities and creative arts disciplines as being concerned with cultural knowledge and artefacts, and the creative and conceptual work entailed in their production and consumption/reception. The knowledge economy can be theorized in a number of ways and in terms of a variety of theories of socioeconomic change. Post‐Fordist approaches, for example, include the techno‐economic strands—the neo‐Schumpeterian (Freeman Lipietz, Citation1986; Boyer, Citation1990)—as well as flexible specialization (Piore & Sabel, Citation1984) and disorganized capitalism/new times (Lash & Urry, Citation1987) strands. Other alternative theorizations include post‐industrialism (Bell, Citation1973), flexible accumulation (Harvey, Citation1989), and network society (Castells, Citation1989). According to Gillies (Citation2001, pp. 41–42), commercialization 'counters the principle of the free dissemination of ideas which has traditionally resided at the heart of fundamental, publicly funded research' and raises 'ethical questions about the transfer' of intellectual property. Further, it undermines 'the credibility of public‐good research, because of a suspicion that its finding may not have emerged "without fear of favour"' or to accommodate the interests of personal and/or institutional acquisition of wealth. For instance, according to humanist convention, authorship has tended to be individual in humanities disciplines (Morris & McCalman, Citation1998, p. 2). In spite of increased inter‐disciplinarity, over 90% of humanities research publications are single‐authored (Australian Academy of the Humanities, Citation1998a, p. 13). Some of these issues are taken up and explored in more depth in the edited collection, Arts, Humanities and the Knowledge Economy (Kenway et al., Citation2004). Additional informationNotes on contributorsElizabeth Bullen Footnote* * Corresponding author: Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures, University of South Australia, Holbrooks Road, Underdale SA 5038, Australia. Email: elizabeth.bullen@unisa.edu.au
Bullen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.