Laying claim to the academic field : The European Research Council and the European project

Abstract

"The European Union wants the 'European Research Area' to become a process with its own competitive dynamics between national academic traditions and the global hegemony of US research. At first glance, such a Europeanization of Higher Education is vertically posited by the EU Research Framework Programmes. In addition and beyond that, the European Research Council (ERC) establishes a genuinely European academic logic fueled by strategies aimed at scientific autonomy. It does so by creating competition in accordance with meritocratic rules of academic legitimacy. As a result, both governance-oriented and critical idealist elites actively relate to the ERC as a European institution and bestow it with the ability of consecrating academic excellence. As a consequence, they contribute to the discursive construction of a European order characterized by a symbolic and material integration of elites, the opening up of national fields and the primacy of economic competition." (Author's abstract, © Springer-Verlag) ((en))

Cite article

Gengnagel, V., Massih-Tehrani, N. & Baier, C. (2016): Der European Research Council als Ordnungsanspruch des europäischen Projekts im akademischen Feld. In: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 61-84. DOI:10.1007/s11609-016-0308-0