Academic fury over order to study the big society

[muriel_volestrangler]

Researchers 'over a barrel' after coalition threat to cut £100m grant from Arts and Humanities Research Council

Academics will study the "big society" as a priority, following a deal with the government to secure funding from cuts.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will spend a "significant" amount of its funding on the prime minister's vision for the country, after a government "clarification" of the Haldane principle – a convention that for 90 years has protected the right of academics to decide where research funds should be spent.

Under the revised principle, research bodies must work to the government's national objectives, although the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that ministers will not meddle in individual projects.

It is claimed the AHRC was told that research into the "big society" was non-negotiable if it wished to maintain its funding at £100m a year.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/27/academic-study-big-society

This is disgusting. Even worse, Vince Cable is apparently at the heart of it. He doesn't just have feet of clay - his whole body is turning put to be made of the stuff.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Great...

With this government we get the best of all worlds, don't we? All the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, let-the-rich-trample-on-the-poor world of the free-market, combined with government ideological control-freak policies that would have made the old Soviet Union proud!

I never did trust Vince C., whom I always regarded as 80% Tory; but I think that the Tories are sitting on him hard, or even blackmailing him in some way, to prevent him from expressing the other 20%. If he'd had any self-respect, he'd have resigned after the Murdoch episode.

[miscsoc]

2. To be fair it's a research topic that could keep them busy for decades