Scrutinising Science

By the 1980s, UK government research laboratories were an often quirky but always essential part of the state sector. In one of the most radical experiments in the organization and management of scientific research attempted in the UK, successive Conservative governments sought to reform these laboratories by applying the market based solution of “New Public Management”. “Scrutinising Science” explores and critiques that reform process by examining the laboratories’new organizational forms, the new visions of what science is for, implicit in the reform agenda, and the new forms of scientific knowledge production that have arisen as a consequence.

Author Biography

REBECCA BODEN is a Professor of Accounting at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England and a Visiting Professor at PREST, University of Manchester. A political scientist by training, she has researched and written extensively in the areas of New Public Management and UK science policy. Within these fields, she is particularly concerned with the role of accounting and accountants in the public sector and other non-private sector environments.

DEBORAH COX is a Research Fellow at PREST, the University of Manchester. Her background is in social sciences and information management. Her research portfolio includes explorations of the changing nature of the management of scientific research and the relationships between the science base, economy and society.

MARIA NEDEVA is a Research Fellow at PREST, the University of Manchester. Her background is in the sociology of science and technology. Her research expertise is in evaluation of research programmes and in the study of science and technology policy issues, such as the relationship between higher education and industry, research infrastructure and its impact on the quality of research, knowledge producing institutions and internationalization of research.

KATHARINE BARKER is a Research Fellow at PREST, the University of Manchester. Her research interests include research policy, particularly evaluation of research programmes and research in government, international collaboration in research, technological development between firms and policy for national and international scientific facilities.