We are delighted to have this book in the series. As the author explains, it has been a long and difficult journey to completion, which makes the outcome even more welcome. It also means that the book is both up-to-date and extremely timely, given that the HE sector is now publicly in crisis. We hope this book will be valuable to anyone trying to make sense of the complex world of UK HE. For many academics, engaging with bureaucracy can seem boring and take us away from the ‘real’ work, but, as the author points out, ‘not knowing the rules can leave us vulnerable to mythologised (mis)interpretations of how audit processes work and thus complicit in reproducing an academia which could be done differently’. The book has sector-wide and cross-disciplinary relevance, but we would like to see a well-thumbed copy on the desks of vice chancellors and other senior leaders and even on that of the Minister for Education – if only she had the time.

The author begins from her standpoint as a precarious early career feminist academic and used this to inform her analysis of everyday textual practices of academics in UK HE, in the context of an audit culture, and their differential impacts. Órla Murray makes a case that few in the HE sector would disagree with: