The principle of reason "as principle of grounding, foundation or institution" has tended to guide the science of research toward techno-practical ends. From this epistemic superintendence of the terms of knowledge and inquiry, there has arisen the traditional notion of academic responsibility that is tied to the pursuit of truth via a conception of science based on the teleological orientation of intellectual labour toward the production of tangible outcomes achieved according to a method of procedural objectivity. For Jacques Derrida, this is not an insignificant historicity because its effects determine the nature of the epistemic subjectivity of the researcher. The ethics and politics of research--and the role "the ["modern"] university may play" in helping to construct the dimensions of a scholastic arena impelled toward the quest for the pragmatic application of results or the "pay off" of pre-directed outcomes of inquiry--is fed more and more by competing interests situated outside of the rationale of the institution itself. In this article, the author discusses the deconstruction and the orientations of a new academic responsibility. He also discusses the affirmative ethics and academic responsibility of deconstruction in practice through the International College of Philosophy. (Contains 3 notes.)