Journal articles from the research team

Read publications from the Universities and Unicorns project:

• (In press) Komljenovic, J., Sellar, S., Birch, K. and Hansen, M. (2024). Assetization of higher education’s digital disruption. In: Williamson, B., Komljenovic, J., Gulson, K. (Eds) World Yearbook of Education 2024: Digitalization of Education in the Era of Algorithms, Automation, and Artificial Intelligence. London: Routledge.
• Hansen, M., and Komljenovic, J. (2022). Automating learning situations: Techno-commercial logic of assetisation.
• Williamson, B. and Komljenovic, J. (2022). Investing in imagined digital futures: the techno-financial ‘futuring’ of edtech investors in higher education.
• Komljenovic, J. (2022). Where is Value in Digital Higher Education: From Commodities to Assets. International Higher Education, (111), 9–11.

Read publications from the Universities and Unicorns project team:

• Birch K. (under contract) Data Enclaves. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Birch, K. and Ward, C. (2023) Introduction: Critical approaches to rentiership. Environment and Planning A.
• Birch, K. (2023) Reflexive expectations in innovation financing: An analysis of venture capital as a mode of valuation, Social Studies of Science 53(1): 29-48.
• Birch, K. and Ward, C. (2022) Assetization and the new asset geographies, Dialogues in Human Geography.
• Birch, K., Ward, C. and Tretter, E. (2022) Introduction: New frontiers of techno-economic rentiership, Competition and Change 26(3-4): 407-414.
• Birch, K. and Cochrane, D.T. (2022) Big Tech: Four emerging forms of digital rentiership, Science as Culture 31(1): 44-58.
• Gulson, KN, Sellar, S., Webb, PT (2022) Algorithms of Education: How Datafication and Artificial Intelligence Shape Policy. Minnesota University Press.
• Guay, R., & Birch, K. (2022). A comparative analysis of data governance: Socio-technical imaginaries of digital personal data in the USA and EU (2008–2016). Big Data & Society, 9(2).

The Universities and Unicorns project is theoretically and conceptually based on theories of assetisation and rentiership. Read selected articles by the core team that explain the project foundations and relate to the project's research themes:

• Komljenovic, J. (2020). The future of value in digitalised higher education: why data privacy should not be our biggest concern;
• Komljenovic, J. (2020). The rise of education rentiers: digital platforms, digital data and rents;
• Birch, K. (2020). Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism.
• Birch, K., & Cochrane, D. T. (2021). Big Tech: Four Emerging Forms of Digital Rentiership.
• Birch, K., Cochrane, D., & Ward, C. (2021). Data as asset? The measurement, governance, and valuation of digital personal data by Big Tech;
• Birch, K., & Muniesa, F. (Eds.). (2020). Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism.