My research interests bear on Anglophone area higher education systems, more particularly on the way institutional assessment mechanisms (of research, teaching and learning) have come to steer HE institutions' missions and activities and shape academic life at different levels. I have focused so far on the British system of HE, with some comparisons with the USA and France. My work largely draws on discourse analysis enriched with an interdisciplinary approach in that I also borrow theoretical principles and methodological tools from sciences sociology and organizational sociology whenever relevant.