Universities and the production of knowledge – Introduction

Abstract

The system of higher education is undergoing heightened evaluation and reform in a number of advanced industrial nations. There are pressures for greater productivity and efficiency, demands for more responsiveness and enhanced application, as well as reforms in the financing of universities. We believe it is important to move beyond traditional policy research and reform perspectives in order to understand the changing role of higher education. There are several reasons for this initiative. First, pressures for reform or change are not only generated from higher education policy makers, but stem from a number of forces inside and outside the formal higher education sector, such as perceived or real demographic, economic, and social changes. Furthermore, universities are no longer the only contributors to the production of knowledge. Research institutes, private firms, and government laboratories are increasingly active in the generation of novel basic science. Some pundits characterize these developments as reflecting the greater involvement of universities in the marketplace. We think such a framing is both too narrow and too simple. Too narrow because the marketplace is but one among a number of forces that affect the organization of knowledge production in society, too simple because the concept of the ‘‘marketplace’’ is often used in ways that obscure the mix of public policies and social and economic pressures that trigger change. In the spring of 2003 we brought together researchers who study higher education, knowledge generation, knowledge regimes and national systems of innovation for a productive dialogue, drawing from good empirical social science, to assess the changing role of knowledge and universities in society, and the linkages between knowledge, universities, and economic growth. In doing so we aimed to bridge communities that normally do not talk to one another. Students of higher education systems and reforms seem to communicate little with students of knowledge production, research and science and technology. The conference was intended as a setting for the presentation of empirical research, not for opinion papers, policy debates, or reflections Higher Education (2005) 49: 1–8 Springer 2005