Disciplining British IR: How the professionalization of higher-education and social media have shaped the discipline of International Relations in th

This project explores the 'policing' of the study of International Relations (IR) in Britain to see if changes to the higher-education agenda have fuelled the marginalisation of approaches that do not fit in with 'professional' standards. This is important; a subject's status as 'not quite proper knowledge' has a detrimental impact on student engagement, career prospects, professional opportunities and the well-being of scholars within universities (Pereira, 2017, p. 3). Focusing from 2001 to 2020, this study will examine the impact of three important developments within academia upon IR: (i) the agenda-setting influence of 'impact' as defined by the RAE/REF (Research Assessment Exercise/Research Excellence Framework), (ii) the use of metrics within academia to gauge success, and (iii) the rise of the public intellectual operating via social media. By adopting a political-sociological approach to analyse the state of IR within this backdrop, this cross-institutional and interdisciplinary study can produce original research that informs the wider social sciences of the implications of higher-education agenda-setting, as well as the implications of new developments, such as prevalence of social media within the academy. Such developments are crucial to understand, not just because they effect the study of IR, nor because of the implications for the entire social sciences, but because these developments within universities shape how Britain's academics and graduates form policies for the real world.