We do not want any “market of knowledge”! Call for a European mobilisation against the Lisbon strategy in higher education and research

In march 2010, the spring summit of the heads of state and governments of the

European union will mark the 10 years of the Lisbon strategy, which frames the policies currently engaged in the Member States so as to «modernise» the national research and education system (primary, secondary and higher education, lifelong learning).

The declared ambition of a «knowledge based society» should ? be encouraged, as far as it consists in a collective ambition to promote education and research as public goods, a guarantee of democratisation of access to knowledge, and allows citizens to perform a reasoned critical analysis of scientific and technical choices which are proposed to them. But the current orientation is different, and reduces this prospect to the building of a «common market of knowledge» whose harmful influence can be observed everywhere, with consequences such as the weakening of the scientific independence, the disintegration of the public research system and the strengthening of the private sector, the increase of precarious conditions for workers and students, the deepening of inequalities in the access to knowledge and the increase of the disinvolvement of citizens in technical and scientific choices.

http://www.spring2010.eu/