Matt Goodwin: can you be an academic outside a university?

Controversial professor bets on Substack and right-wing links to sustain scholarship after exiting formal academic role

August 21, 2024
Oxford University Gowns in an Oxford shop window to illustrate Matt Goodwin: can you be a scholar outside of a university?
Source: Stockimo/Alamy

Following his departure from the University of Kent last month, Matthew Goodwin has joined a small but growing band of high-profile academics operating outside the formal university system.

The political scientist left amid Kent’s financial turmoil, but his position had been under question for some time due to his increasingly populist commentary on issues such as the recent right-wing unrest in the UK.

In leaving, Professor Goodwin appears to have bet his future on monetising this analysis, primarily through his Substack page, which he claims is “one of the biggest in the UK”.

But he has also been at pains to retain his scholarly credentials, emphasising his “honorary professorship” at Kent – a time-limited status granted to all departing professors – and telling Times Higher Education he plans to announce further research projects imminently. He is, in his own words, “still firmly an academic”.

“He has chosen Faragism over academia but his USP in his new milieu still depends on eking out his academic credibility,” said Martin Shaw, emeritus professor of politics at the University of Sussex and author of Political Racism: Brexit and Its Aftermath.

“I can’t see him resuscitating his career in a British university, but his precise academic status doesn’t matter to his online audience.”

King’s College London professor Jonathan Portes – who has repeatedly clashed with Professor Goodwin despite them both once being members of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative – said his former colleague was “obviously not an academic now any more” but that did not mean academia couldn’t be home to controversial views.

Others were less sure. Joanna Williams, who left her post as senior lecturer in higher education at Kent five years ago and has since worked primarily in thinktanks and journalism, said she felt only those whose opinions are “in line with the dominant views of the academy” have “great freedom to speak out”.

Those who do not conform suffer in their careers as a result, said Dr Williams, who, like Professor Goodwin, has been a supporter of Brexit and gender-critical views.

Dr Williams likened her move to that of the politician Tony Benn, who famously said he left Parliament to “spend more time on politics”.

“I left the university to be able to pursue academic work because I did not have that intellectual freedom within the university structures,” she said.

Whether or not she was still an academic was an open question, she added.

“If the definition of an academic is somebody employed by a university, then I’m obviously aware I’m not that, I don’t fit the criteria,” she said.

“But if an academic is somebody who is engaged in intellectual work, in research, in contributing to the development and pursuit of ideas, then I absolutely see myself in that regard. If an academic is an identity, then that is how I identify.”

Dr Williams and Professor Goodwin have both argued that those with more leftist views have greater freedom to express their views from within the walls of the academy.

But Rupert Read, a former Green Party politician and co-founder of environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, said he too had faced hostility while working as a reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia, a position he left last year.

Dr Read alleged that early on in his career, as he became more involved in political causes, a former vice-chancellor had tried to get rid of him and he had been told to choose “if your path is going to be political or strictly academic”.

This changed, he said, with the birth of the impact agenda, which, although “extremely imperfect”, had shown universities the value of academics doing outside work, and his former department had ended up submitting some of his work with Extinction Rebellion as a case study for the Research Excellence Framework.

Dr Read said that despite this he had felt increasingly dissatisfied with academia before his eventual exit and had found much of the work he has done since to be “more intellectually satisfying”.

“You encounter prejudices [in universities], including, ‘maybe you are not interested in thinking any more’ because you are more interested in doing,” he said.

“Or ‘you have a bias because of the party you are affiliated with’. Of course, these things are possible but that doesn’t mean they are true.

“The academy could be more welcoming to people who are outsider-insiders and who are seeking to not be just ivory tower thinkers.”

Dr Williams said leaving a university role to have more freedom to speak out inevitably involved a trade-off between intellectual freedom and financial security.

“I don’t earn what I did but I’m not starving and I’m enjoying life – it is a fair trade-off. I’m sure that will be the case for Matthew as well with his Substack and other offers of work. He’s going to have his freedom to say what he wants and live comfortably, I’m sure. Ultimately, I think who loses is academia and students.

“The more academia becomes conformist, with the more contrarian, different viewpoints taken out, the more the disciplines suffer, and the more students suffer.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (7)

It is called being an independent scholar. We have existed for years. Requires dedication and willingness to use your own ' spare' time and resources, since noone is paying you to pursue your research interests. But can also mean you are free to challenge ' accepted wisdom' in a way salaried academics are not. No worries re the REF, KEF, toeing the line, etc. But this is different from turning into a media pundit or journalist or even being a consultant. You may need to do those things as your day job to keep body and soul together , but the personally supported research from own resources is where you can cut free... Not really an option I guess for lab based researchers, but for others ( desk based) is perfectly possible.
I agree
So sad - the decline of the Enlightenment U into a depressing moribund academic conformism embraced by a vociferous 10% who then scare the rest into reluctant acceptance and into not speaking out. Exactly why we needed the 2023 Free Speech Act. Good luck to Matt G!
In the US, university department staffs, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, are dominated by those who espouse "liberal" or "left" positions, while disciplines featuring this trend have steadily lost students in recent years. Meanwhile, according to a survey in this publication, two-thirds of UK academics would this year vote for Labour and only four percent for the Conservatives. More generally, in the Anglophone world academic agendas are increasingly set by those who advocate relativist research paradigms that prevent substantive critique. J.M. Coetzee might have been right when he observed a few years ago that philosophy might be driven from the Academy to private sitting rooms, as it often was in Soviet-bloc countries during the Cold War.
By definition in simple English, an "academic" has an ongoing relationship with "academia," an academic institution. That is not synonymous with independent or public scholars who indeed have a long, strong history but are not, by definition "academics." Finally, a credible evidence across the world confirms that universities are not dominated by "leftists." Liberals are not "leftists." All credible evidence confirms that there is more active indoctrination across campuses and beyond by "conservatives" and "right wing ideologues/radicals," who also are not synonymous. There never was an "Enlightenment U," especially during the actual 18th C Enlightenment! Both language and facts matter. Even in 2024!
Why give this dangerous grifter turned rabble rouser any publicity?
I'm a bit late to this party, but I've been "following" Mr Goodwin on Substack for some time just to keep an eye on him. He doesn't allow non-subscribers to leave comments, so the illusion of universal agreement with his twisted vision of culture and current affairs is maintained. I was surprised he lasted at UoK for as long as he did. Whatever truth there might be regarding the limitations of academia, when you step outside of impartial, or at least objective, commentary into far left/right/other propaganda then you are no longer deserving of academic tenure. I expect to see him rubbing shoulders with Farage and Tice in due course.

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