Beyond the Academy: Looking ahead to ICMS 2027 Conference

The university has come to appear simultaneously as an institution estranged from a unifying sense of public purpose, and yet increasingly organized for seeking ‘excellence’ and delivering ‘impact’, ‘knowledge exchange, and ‘graduate outcomes’. Against such a background, subject to managerial neoliberalisation, marketization and hierarchical bureaucratic authority, how might the ‘university’ articulate its purpose and its role in society? In this online launch event of the ICMS2027 conference, together with the organisers from Lancaster University and stream organisers, we will start the discussions on “What relations are there (or should there be?) between the forms of organizing that are conceptualized, critiqued and encouraged in academic writing and research and the world beyond the Academy?”, a conversation we hope to continue in Lancaster in July 2027. For the call for papers and more details on the conference, visit the website