Contracting out research is an entrenched practice in New Zealand  and Australian education (Davis, Sullivan & Yeatman, 1997).   It arises from the neo-liberal social reforms of New Zealand in the 1980s (Boston, 1989), subsequently adopted and endorsed in Australia by the Kennett Government in Victoria (Alford & O’Neill, 1994).   To an alarming extent, present-day contractualism, explicitly set up as a commercial transaction,  rationalises its continuation by drawing on the so-called theorising of Osborne & Gaebler (1992), which identifies government agencies as making the policy decisions (the role of “steering”),  while the contractor carrying out the research is responsible for service delivery (the “rowing”).   

This paper analyses the implications of one contract research paradigm for academic integrity.   It argues that with the persistence of neo-liberal frameworks for education around the world, increasing government intervention in academic research, and declining resources for education research, contractualism looms as a growing threat in Europe, North America and Australasia.  

The research question of this analytical paper is, What are the implications of contract research (“contractualism”) for academic integrity in education research?   The paper invokes Critical Discourse Analysis to identify power, control and the production and dissemination of a dominant discourse.   It therefore critiques the discourse, language and constraints of the formal legal contracts drawn up by purchasers (cf Codd, 1995), concentrating on:

• the demands that purchasers place on providers (the contractors) 
• power-relations between the purchaser and the provider  
• the implications of contracts for research 
• the construction and accessibility of knowledge  

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