Accelerated Academia: Time Regimes of a University Merger

This article explores a Finnish university merger as a disruption of academic time regimes. Previous research has shown how academic time regimes are drawn ever tighter by increasing pressures for performance, efficiency and competitiveness both on the level of higher education institutions and individual academics. On a policy level, higher education is called upon to do more, to contribute more to economic growth and competitiveness. Public higher education institutions (HEIs) are also reformed to this effect. Accelerating policy initiatives change organizational time regimes in HEIs, encroaching upon individual academic time regimes. Academics experience this as less self-determined professional time available to them and increased imposed organizational time demands, with problematic consequences to meaningful academic self-governance. Our findings add to current discussions on accelerating academia by suggesting an analytical separation of time regimes that impact academia to describe experiences of acceleration. The article draws on survey and interview data from a Finnish university merger to show how organizational changes further disrupt academic time regimes. As a result, academics experience a sense of lost control and agency over their own work, or, following Hartmut Rosa, alienation.