Introduction

this is the fourth issue of social research since 2009 that is concerned with changes occurring in universities both in the United States and elsewhere. It may seem a disproportionate number given the many other subjects we might have considered, but we do not think so, given our history. Social Research, the journal of the New School for Social Research, was first published in 1934, established by the University in Exile scholars who were the founding faculty members of the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at The New School, now known as the New School for Social Research (NSSR), a division of The New School. Since its founding, Social Research and the NSSR have been deeply concerned with maintaining freedom of inquiry, which we take to be a core value of all institutions of higher learning. That core value is now facing challenges from many directions.

As is now well known, the University in Exile (UIE) was the home at The New School for primarily German Jewish scholars who had been rescued by The New School's first president from almost certain imminent extinction by the Nazi regime, which was then rising to power. The Nazi regime, while it was at work doing many evil things, was launching a frontal attack on the principle of free inquiry at German universities. The UIE was meant not only to protect these endangered scholars but also to protect the prized principle of free inquiry, and it has continued to do so through its several name changes. It is for this reason, if not for others, that it seems completely right for Social Research to put together a series of special issues on universities, which are subject to many different kinds of pressures today, some of which have the potential to encroach on or erode freedom of inquiry, whether directly or indirectly.

Our first two issues explicitly concerned with universities both appeared in 2009 and were titled "Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times." One focused primarily on the United States, the next on universities in other countries. A third issue appeared in 2012 and was titled "The Future of Higher Education."

The current issue addresses an aspect only touched on in earlier issues: the effect on universities of the growing pressure for accountability, which appears to stem from their increasing corporatization and other kinds of societal pressures. The questions that are front and center here are:

• • This accountability is to whom and for what?

• • Who sets the standards and what ends do they serve?

• • Why should the state pay for higher education unless its own purposes are served?

• • What are these purposes and how do they affect what gets taught and what research gets supported?

These are the questions that the authors in this issue were asked to grapple with. While their answers are not uniform, all are interesting and some are provocative. There seems to be little doubt that what is at stake here in the arguments surrounding accountability is the future of universities and of scholarly knowledge more generally.

The papers in this special issue were first presented at the conference entitled "The Future of Scholarly Knowledge: Principles, Pressures, and Prospects," which was held October 13–14, 2016, at the New School for Social Research. I am grateful to Sage Publications for its generous support of the Future of Scholarly Knowledge Project, directed by Kenneth Prewitt at Columbia University's Global Policy Initiative. I am also deeply grateful to Ken himself for conceiving the conference and working with me to put it together, and for guest co-editing this special issue with me.