---
title: A world reimagined without the university
layout: post
categories: [scholarly communications]
tags: [scholarly communications]
published: True
---
I'm at a workshop in Madrid organized by FORCE11. The first exercise was to imagine a world where universities did not exist, their hierarchies and power were abolished, but we still knew what we know. What would we build?

I answered through a series of "undoing" questions:

* What is HE for?
* Why do we research?
* What is "knowledge"?
* What financial form would have to underpin whatever we build? (this world isn't _that_ different it seems)
* How do we remunerate labour?
* Who gets to be "in" whatever we build?
* Why humanities/sciences?
* Why disciplines?
* What is relationship between knowing things and governing/having power?
* What kinds of freedom are needed to pursue knowledge?
* How do we tell people what has been found locally?
* How do they find it?
* How do they use it and how much do we want to determine how it is used?
* What labour forms are involved?
* Do we want division of labour and specialisation? Even in communications?
* Who might wish to harm us and how do we stop them?