Marie Laplante-Anfossi

I will take part in the next annual congress of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britian.

When : Friday, March 28th, 2025 (Parallel sessions II)
Where : New College, Oxford University, Oxford (UK)

Paper title: Knowledge as a public good: the universities’ duty to disseminate research outside academia

Abstract: The public value of higher education, often conceived in terms of public goods, is called upon in the justification of the public funding of colleges and universities. Recently, many countries have seen political imperatives for the dissemination of scientific knowledge as a way of showing the public value of the research realised in academia. But is dissemination a task to be carried out by universities? In this paper, I argue that dissemination to non-attendees would strengthen the public value of higher education by recognizing knowledge as a public good. I show the problems of treating knowledge as an impure public good, as current institutions do, and I demonstrate the gains colleges and universities would make by taking the responsibility of disseminating knowledge to non-attendees. While pondering the merits of the political imperative for dissemination, this paper contributes to the reflection on the aims of higher education and higher education institutions.