History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Maria Nedeva
PREST, The Victoria University of Manchester, United Kingdom,
maria.nedeva@man.ac.uk
Change in mind, change in kind: current dynamics of the knowledge producing institutions
Lately we have witnessed some unprecedented changes in the nature and structures of knowledge production and its institutions. Researchers have employed different concepts to describe and discuss these changes. So, for example, some have referred to these as ‘mode 2 knowledge production’, others have named them ‘the Triple Helix’ etc. Increasing body of research discusses the cognitive and institutional changes that have been empirically registered in terms of university — industry links and commercialisations of research.
The focus of this paper is on the changes affecting the publicly funded performers of research, namely universities and research organisations. More specifically, structural transformations affecting the employment structures, the funding mechanisms, the evaluation strategies, the formulation of research agendas and the governance practices of the institutions are discussed. The discussion is informed by data collected by an international consortium for the purposes of a study funded by the former TSER programme.
While discussing institutional change in the context of academe-industry links and commercialisation of research the paper also critiques some of the widely used ‘analytical’ concepts in science. technology and innovation studies today.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006