Recovering Meaning by Reforming Organizations and Institutions

This chapter addresses what universities, university departments, and professional institutions can do to support the recovery of meaning in social science research. It examines how the practices of journals, publishers, conference organizers, workshops, and other research-related institutions can be reformed to this end. The chapter also looks at how departmental and school practices can be reformed. These include PhD training, other research-relevant educational matters, seminars, workshops, and promotion. The chapter argues that it is academics themselves, and in particular senior academics, who are generally in control as deans, departmental heads, editors, conference organizers, and as policy makers. It is they who have the major part of the responsibility to initiate and sustain a fundamental re-orientation of academic institutions and policies towards research that is meaningful and relevant.