New Issues in Science and Technology Policy: Discontinuities in the Process of Knowledge Generation, Knowledge Transfer and Knowledge Transformation

Abstract

For many years the dominant model of the transfer of fundamental knowledge has been that in which it was produced in the universities and subsequently diffused to other sectors of society, including industry. The application of this knowledge led eventually to new technological and social developments. This is the model of the “pool of knowledge”: knowledge, like water, flows under “gravitational” forces along contours in the socio/economic landscape to areas where inevitably it leads to growth and progress. During the past decade, however, there have been certain developments which make it necessary to seek now concepts of knowledge generation, transfer and transformation. This paper is designed to stimulate the process of developing these new concepts. Its purpose is to determine what the new issues of science and technology policy are and, in the light of the analysis, question whether the current infrastructure and the traditional manner in which politics, science and industry deal with knowledge (patents, privacy rewards, recognition, etc.), are appropriate.