Knowledge is now central to national economic competitiveness and to socio-economic endeavours
concerned with inequalities and social exclusion and in this context higher education is
recognized as a core sector of national policy and strategy. Yet the changing pressures
directions and practices in relation to knowledge pose many challenges for higher education
itself. How can and how should research and study programs within higher education align with
wider knowledge dynamics? How can higher education prepare students in professional fields for
different kinds of knowledge-intensive work practices? How can short term economic objectives
for higher education be aligned with other kinds of knowledge objectives that have
characterized universities and colleges and with the intensified impact of global rankings?
This book takes as its focus the core interest of higher education in knowledge and takes as
its object of inquiry the kinds of reconfiguration of knowledge evident in national policies
and governance and in the redevelopment and practices of a range of professional and academic
study programs in higher education institutions in Norway and Australia. From these detailed
accounts the book demonstrates the complexity of knowledge as an object of policy and practice
the competing logics that may be evident within and between study programs and policies and
the different kinds of agents and drivers that are part of knowledge reconfiguration in higher
education and that need further attention going forward.
