Publications

Special Issues

• Komljenovic, J., Birch, K. and Sellar, S. (in process) Rents, assets and governance in digitalised education, Learning, Media & Technology.
• Birch, K. and Ward, C. (2023) Introduction: Critical approaches to rentiership, Environment and Planning A 55(6): 1429-1437. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Ward, C. and Tretter, E. (2022) Introduction: New frontiers in techno-economic rentiership, Competition & Change 26(3-4): 407-414. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2022) Big Tech, Science as Culture 31(1): 1-14. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Springer, S. (2019) Peak neoliberalism? Revisiting and rethinking neoliberalism as a concept, ephemera: theory & politics in organization 19(3): 467-485 [Open Access].
• Birch, K. (2017) Introduction: Techno-economic assumptions, Science as Culture 26(4): 433-444 [Free Access].
• Calvert, K., Kedron, P., Baka, J. and Birch, K. (2017) Geographical perspectives on sociotechnical transitions and emerging bio-economies: introduction to a special issue, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 29(5): 477-485. [Free Access]
• Ponte, S. and Birch, K. (2014) Introduction: Imaginaries and governance of biofueled futures, Environment and Planning A 46(2): 271 – 279.  [Free Access]
• Birch, K. (2006) Introduction: Biofutures/Biopresents, Science as Culture 15(3): 173-181. [Free Access]

Commentaries, Responses, & Editorials

• Birch, K. and Ward, C. (2024) Response: Struggling over new asset geographies, Dialogues in Human Geography 14(1): 47-50.
• Birch, K. (2022) Rentiership in the UK! Commentary 1, Progress in Human Geography 56(5): 1269-1271.
• Birch, K. (2019) Struggling with neoliberalism: A response to Richard Peet, Human Geography 12(2).
• Birch, K. (2017) Commentary: Towards a theory ofrentiership, Dialogues in Human Geography 7(1): 109-111.
• Birch, K. (2015)  Critical dialogue – Response to Brett Christophers’ “Monopolizing Neoliberalism Away”, Antipode Foundation website (7th April).
• Erciyas, K. et al. (2015) Editorial: Dentomics and One Health, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology 19(3): 145-146.

Journal Articles & Review Articles

• Birch, K., Komljenovic, J. and Sellar, S. (forthcoming) Architectures of assetization: Legacy infrastructures and the configuration of datafication in higher education, New Media + Society. [Open Access]
• Miroshnichenko, A. and Birch, K. (forthcoming) Constructing digital assets through blockchain technologies? Unpacking the techno-economic configuration of non-fungible tokens, Social Studies of Science. [Open Access]
• Komljenovic, J. et al. (online) Digitalised higher education: Key developments, questions, and concerns, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. [Open Access]
• Komljenovic, J., Birch, K. and Sellar, S. (online) Monetising digital data in higher education: Analysing the strategies and struggles of EdTech startups, Postdigital Science & Education. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Komljenovic, J., Sellar, S. and Hansen, M. (online) Data as asset, data as rent? Rentiership in EdTech startups, Learning, Media & Technology. [Open Access]
• Komljenovic, J., Sellar, S. and Birch, K. (online) Turning universities into data-powered organisations: dimensions of change, Higher Education. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Marquis, S., and Silva, G.C. (2024) Understanding data valuation: Valuing Google’s data assets, IEEE Transactions on Technology & Society 5(2): 183-190. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Ward, C. (2024) Assetization and the new asset geographies, Dialogues in Human Geography 14(1): 9-29. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2024) Assetization as a mode of techno-economic governance: Knowledge, education, and personal data in the UN’s System of National Accounts, Economy & Society 53(1): 15-38. [Open Access]
• Amuchastegui, M., Birch, K. and Kaltenbrunner, W. (2023) The intersections between sociology and STS: A Big Data approach, Sociological Perspectives 66(5): 868-887. [Open Access]
• 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. [Open Access]
• Kaltenbrunner, W., Birch, K., van Leeuwen, T. and Amuchastegui, M. (2022) Changing publication practices and the ‘typification’ of the journal article in science and technology studies, Social Studies of Science 52(5): 758-782. [Open Access]
• Guay, R. and 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): 1-13. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Cochrane, D.T. (2022) Big Tech: Four Emerging Forms of Digital Rentiership, Science as Culture 31(1): 44-58. [Open Access]
• Kaltenbrunner, W., Birch, K. and Amuchastegui, M. (2021) Editorial work and the peer review economy of STS journals, Science, Technology, & Human Values. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Cochrane, T. and Ward, C. (2021) Data as asset? The measurement, governance, and valuation of digital personal data by Big Tech, Big Data & Society 8(1): 1-15. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2020) Automated neoliberalism? The digital organisation of markets in technoscientific capitalism, New Formations 100-101: 10-27. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Chiappetta, M. and Artyushina, A. (2020) The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: Data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset, Policy Studies 41(5): 468-487. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2020) Technoscience rent: Towards a theory of rentiership for technoscientific capitalism, Science, Technology and Human Values 45(1): 3-33. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2018) Review essay: What is the asset condition?, European Journal of Sociology 59(3): 500-506.
• Birch, K. (2017) Rethinking value in the bio-economy: Finance, assetization and the management of value, Science, Technology and Human Values 42(3): 460-490. [Open Access]
• Özdemir, V., Dandara, C., Hekim, N., Birch, K., Springer, S., Kunej, T. and Endreny, L. (2017) Stop the spam! Conference ethics and decoding the subtext in post-truth science: What would Denis Diderot say?, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology 21(11): 658-664.
• Birch, K. (2017) The problem of bio-concepts: Biopolitics, bio-economy and the political economy of nothing, Cultural Studies of Science Education 12: 915-927.
• Tim-adical Writing Collective (2017) Vulnerabilities, complicities and injustices: ‘Tim-adical’ actions for change in the neoliberal academy, ephemera: theory & politics in organization 17(3): 221-234. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2016) Materiality and sustainability transitions: Integrating climate change into transport infrastructure in Ontario, Canada, Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation 34(3-4): 191-206.
• Birch, K. (2016) Emergent policy imaginaries and fragmented policy frameworks in the Canadian bio-economy, Sustainability 8(10): 1-16 [Open Access].
• Birch, K. and Siemiatycki, M. (2016) Neoliberalism and the geographies of marketization: The entangling of state and markets, Progress in Human Geography 40(2): 177-198.
• Birch, K. (2016) Market vs. contract? The implications of contractual theories of corporate governance to the analysis of neoliberalism, ephemera: theory & politics in organization 16(1): 107-133. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Dove, E., Chiappetta, M. and Gursoy, U. (2016) Biobanks in oral health: Promises and implications of ‘post-neoliberal’ patterns of science and innovation, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology 20(1): 36-41.
• Dove, E. et al. (2015) An appeal to the global health community for a tripartite innovation: An “Essential Diagnostics List,” “Health in All Policies,” and “See-Through 21st Century Science and Ethics”, OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology 19(8).
• Birch, K. (2015) Neoliberalism: The whys and wherefores … and future directions, Sociology Compass 9(7): 571-584.
• Birch, K. and Calvert, K. (2015) Rethinking ‘drop-in’ biofuels: On the political materialities of bioenergy, Science and Technology Studies 28 (1): 52-72. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., Levidow, L. and Papaioannou, T. (2014) Self-fulfilling prophecies of the European knowledge-based bio-economy: The discursive shaping of institutional and policy frameworks in the bio-pharmaceuticals sector, Journal of the Knowledge Economy 5(1): 1-18. Article free online
• Birch, K. and Mykhnenko, V. (2014) Lisbonizing vs. financializing Europe? The Lisbon Strategy and the (un-)making of the European knowledge-based economy, Environment and Planning C 32(1): 108-128. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2013) The political economy of technoscience: An emerging research agenda, Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science, 7(1): 49-61. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Tyfield, D. (2013) Theorizing the bioeconomy: Biovalue, biocapital, bioeconomics or …what?, Science, Technology and Human Values 38(3): 299-327. Article free online
• Levidow, L., Birch, K. and Papaioannou, T. (2013) Divergent paradigms of European agro-food innovation: The knowledge-based bio-economy (KBBE) as an R&D agenda, Science, Technology and Human Values 38(1): 94-125. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2012) Review essay: An open biotechnology revolution?, Science as Culture 21(3): 415-419.
• The SIGJ2 Writing Collective (2012) What can we do? The challenge of being new academics in neoliberal universities, Antipode 44(4): 1055-1058. [Open access]
• Birch, K. (2012) Knowledge, place and power: Geographies of value in the bioeconomy, New Genetics and Society 31(2): 183-201.
• Levidow, L., Birch, K. and Papaioannou, T. (2012) EU agri-innovation policy: Two contending visions of the knowledge-based bio-economy, Critical Policy Studies 6(1): 40-66. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2011) “Weakness” as “strength” in the Scottish life sciences: Institutional embedding of knowledge-based commodity chains in a less-favoured region, Growth and Change 42(1): 71-96.
• Birch, K. and Cumbers, A. (2010) Knowledge, space and economic governance: The implications of knowledge-based commodity chains for less-favoured regions, Environment and Planning A 42(11): 2581-2601.
• Birch, K., Levidow, L. and Papaioannou, T. (2010) Sustainable Capital? The neoliberalization of nature and knowledge in the European knowledge-based bio-economy, Sustainability 2(9): 2898-2918. [Open Access]
• Birch, K., MacKinnon, D. and Cumbers, A. (2010) Old industrial regions in Europe: A comparative assessment of economic performance, Regional Studies 44(1): 35-53.
• Birch, K. (2009) The knowledge-space dynamic in the UK bioeconomy, Area 41(3): 273–284.
• Birch, K. and Mykhnenko, V. (2009) Varieties of neoliberalism? Restructuring in large industrially-dependent regions across Western and Eastern Europe, Journal of Economic Geography 9(3): 355-380. Article free online
• Pike, A., Birch, K., Cumbers, A., MacKinnon, D. and McMaster, R. (2009) Rejoinder: A geographical political economy of evolution in economic geography, Economic Geography 85(2): 175-182 [Symposium, Evolutionary Economic Geography].
• MacKinnon, D., Cumbers, A., Pike, A., Birch, K. and McMaster, R. (2009) Evolution in economic geography: Institutions, political economy and adaptation, Economic Geography 85(2): 129-150 [Symposium, Evolutionary Economic Geography]. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2008) Neoliberalising bioethics: Bias, enhancement and economistic ethics, Genomics, Society and Policy 4(2): 1-10. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Whittam, G. (2008) Critical survey: The third sector and the regional development of social capital, Regional Studies 42(3): 437-450.
• Birch, K. (2008) Alliance-driven governance: Applying a global commodity chains approach to the UK biotechnology industry, Economic Geography 84(1): 83-103. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2007) Knowledge, space and biotechnology, Geography Compass 1(5): 1097-1117.
• Birch, K. (2007) The virtual bioeconomy: The ‘failure’ of performativity and the implications for bioeconomics, Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory 8(1): 83-99. Article free online
• Birch, K. and Cumbers, A. (2007) Public sector spending and the Scottish economy: Crowding out or adding value?, Scottish Affairs 58: 36-56. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2007) Review article: The totalitarian corporation?, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8(1): 153-161 [Winner of 2007 Stanley G. Payne prize for academic excellence]. Article free online
• Birch, K. (2006) The neoliberal underpinnings of the bioeconomy: The ideological discourses and practices of economic competitiveness, Genomics, Society and Policy 2(3): 1-15. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2005) Beneficence, determinism and justice: An engagement with the argument for the genetic selection of intelligence, Bioethics 19(1): 12-28.

Book Chapters

• Birch, K. (2024) Techno-economic organization of markets: Finance, valuation, and assetization, in U. Felt and A. Irwin (eds), Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Studies, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Birch, K. and Cochrane, D.T. (2024) Big Tech: Four emerging forms of digital rentiership, in B. Sanghera (ed.) Global Rentier Capitalism, London: Routledge, pp82-95. [Reprint]
• Komljenovic, J., Sellar, S., Birch, K. and Hansen, M. (2024) Assetization of higher education’s digital disruption, in B. Williamson, J. Komljenovic and K. Gulson (eds), World Yearbook of Education 2024, London: Routledge, pp.122-139.
• Birch, K. and Cochrane, D.T. (2023) Big Tech: Four emerging forms of digital rentiership, in Carstensen, T., Schaupp, S. and Sevignani, S. (eds) Theorien des digialen Kapitalismus, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag. [Reprint in German]
• Birch, K. (2022) Bioeconomies, in L. Pellizzoni, E. Leonardi and V. Asara (eds) Elgar Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.170-180.
• Birch, K. (2021) Neoliberal bioeconomies, in M. Backhouse, R. Lehmann, K. Lorenzen, M. Lühmann, J. Puder, F. Rodríguez, and A. Tittor (eds) Bioeconomy and Global Inequalities: Knowledge, Land, Labor, Biomass, Energy, and Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan & Altamira Press. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Muniesa, F. (2020) Introduction: Assetization and technoscientific capitalism, in Birch, K. and Muniesa, F. (eds) Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. and Muniesa, F. (2020) Conclusion: The future of assetization studies, in Birch, K. and Muniesa, F. (eds) Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism, Cambridge MA: MIT Press. [Open Access]
• Birch, K. (2020) From market to contract: What do corporate governance and contract law contribute to the analysis of neoliberalism, in S. Dawes and M. Lenormand (eds) Neoliberalism in Context: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Chiappetta, M. and Birch, K. (2018) The limits to biocapital, in S. Hilgartner, S. Gibbon, B. Prainsack and J. Lamoreaux (eds), The Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society, London: Routledge.
• Birch, K., Tyfield, D. and Chiapetta, M. (2018) From neoliberalizing research to researching neoliberalism: STS, rentiership and the emergence of commons 2.0, in D. Cahill, M. Konings, M. Cooper and D. Primrose (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Neoliberalism, London: SAGE.
• Calvert, K., Birch, K. and Mabee, W. (2017) New perspectives on an old energy resource: Biomass and emerging bio-economies, in S. Bouzarovski,  M. Pasqualetti and V. Castan Broto (eds), The Routledge Research Companion to Energy Geographies, London: Routledge, pp.47-60.
• Birch, K. (2017) Financing technoscience: Finance, assetization and rentiership, in D. Tyfield, R. Lave, S. Randalls and C. Thorpe (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science, London: Routledge, pp.169-181.
• Springer, S., Birch, K. and MacLeavy, J. (2016) An introduction to neoliberalism, in Springer, S., Birch, K. and MacLeavy, J. (eds) The Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge, pp.1-14.
• Birch, K. (2016) Financial economics and business schools: Legitimating corporate monopoly, reproducing neoliberalism?, in Springer, S., Birch, K. and MacLeavy, J. (eds) The Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge, pp.320-330.
• Birch, K. and Wudrich, D. (2015) (Re)building sustainable infrastructure: The implications for engineers, in C. Lipsig-Mumme and S. McBride (eds) Work in a Warming World, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp.125-141.
• Birch, K. and Whittam, G. (2012) Social entrepreneurship, in Entrepreneurship and Small Firms by D. Deakins and M. Freel. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill (6th Edition) [Revised chapter], pp.105-123.
• Levidow, L., Papaioannou, T. and Birch, K. (2012) Neoliberalising Technoscience and Environment:  EU Policy for Competitive, Sustainable Biofuels, in Neoliberalism and Technoscience: Critical Assessments by L. Pellizzoni and M. Ylönen (eds). Farnham: Ashgate Publishers, pp.159-186. Chapter free online
• Birch, K. and Cumbers, A. (2012) Industrial transition in knowledge-based sectors: Changing economic governance and institutional arrangements in the Scottish life sciences, in Industrial Transition. New Global-Local Patterns of Production, Work, and Innovation by M.Fromhold-Eisebith and M. Fuchs (eds). Farnham: Ashgate, pp.99-115.
• Birch, K. and Cumbers, A. (2011) Alliance-driven governance in Scottish life science commodity chains and its contribution to regional development, in International Entrepreneurship: Business Ventures in Life Sciences by M. Jones, C. Wheeler and P. Dimitratos (eds). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp.139-155.
• Whittam, G. and Birch, K. (2011) Market madness or the road to salvation? A critical review of the social enterprise agenda, in Enterprise, Deprivation and Social Exclusion: The Role of Small Business in Addressing Social and Economic Inequalities by A. Southern (ed.). London: Routledge, pp.239-253.
• Birch, K. and Mykhnenko, V. (2010) Introduction: A world turned right-way up, in The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism by K. Birch and V. Mykhnenko (eds). London: Zed Books, pp.1-20. Chapter free online
• Mykhnenko, V. and Birch, K. (2010) Conclusion: The end of an economic order?, in The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism by K. Birch and V. Mykhnenko (eds). London: Zed Books, pp.255-268.
• Birch, K. and Tickell, A. (2010) Making neoliberal order in the United States, in The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism by K. Birch and V. Mykhnenko (eds). London: Zed Books, pp.42-59.
• Birch, K. and Whittam, G. (2009) Social entrepreneurship, in Entrepreneurship and Small Firms by D. Deakins and M. Freel. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill (5th Edition), pp.248-264.
• Birch, K. (2007) The knowledge-space dynamic in the British biotechnology industry: Function, relation and association, in Creative Regions: Technology, Culture and Knowledge Entrepreneurship by P. Cooke and D. Schwartz (eds). London: Routledge, pp.148-168.
• Birch, K. (2007) The social construction of the biotech industry, in New Genetics, New Social Formations by P. Glasner, P. Atkinson and H. Greenslade (eds). London: Routledge, pp.94-113.

Book Reviews

• A Billion Little Pieces: RFID and Infrastructures of Identification (2019) by J. Firth, Surveillance & Society 18(1) 2020: 133-134.
• Clinical Labor (2014) by M. Cooper and C. Waldby, New Genetics and Society 34(4) 2015: 444-446.
• The Modern State Subverted: Risk and the Deconstruction of Solidarity (2014) by Giuseppe di Palma, Review of Politics 77(2) 2015: 330-332.
• Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2013) by M. Blyth, Journal of Cultural Economy 7(4) 2014: 524-526.
• Constructing Neoliberalism: Economic Transformation in Anglo-American Democracies (2013) by J. Swarts, International Studies Review 16(4) 2014: 647-649.
• Economic Globalisation as Religious War: Tragic Convergence (2007) by M. McKinley, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 9(4) 2008: 605-606.
• The Changing Economic Geography of Globalization (2006) by G. Vertova (ed.), Economic Geography 84(2) 2008: 243-244.
• Growth cultures: the global bioeconomy and its bioregions (2007) by P. Cooke, Journal of Economic Geography 8(2) 2008: 265-266.
• Regional Development in the Knowledge Economy (2006) by P. Cooke and A. Piccaluga (eds), Urban Studies 44(8) 2007: 1622-1623.
• Biocapital (2006) by K. Sunder Rajan, American Journal of Bioethics 7(6) 2007: 67-69.
• Making People Behave (2005) by E. Burney, Urban Studies 43(9) 2006: 1650-1652.
• Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (2005) by A. Hinton, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 7(3) 2006: 393-394.
• “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (2003) by S. Power, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6(3) 2005: 427-8.
• Ethics and the Business of Bioscience (2004) by M. L. Eaton, American Journal of Bioethics 5(4) 2005: 58-60.
• Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials (2004) by P. Weindling, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6(1) 2005: 159-160.
• Hungry Corporations (2003) by H. Paul and R. Steinbrecher, New Genetics and Society 23(3) 2004: 328-9.