History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Luísa Oliveira
ISCTE / University of Lisbon
Lisbon
Portugal
e-mail: luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt
Science and its clients: new criteria for ranking universities?
There is not a precise idea of "knowledge society" since, in a certain extent, societies have always been based on knowledge. It seems that "knowledge" has been used, more recently, instead of science — or scientific knowledge - to refer to "mode 2" production of knowledge. For some economists, however, knowledge society means an economy pushed by science-based-industries (telecommunications, informatics, biotechnology, etc) as opposed to traditional industries (steel, textile, etc.).
With basis on empirical data collected in firms and universities in different European countries, we discuss in this paper the problem of the homogeneity/ heterogeneity of science-based-industries and the nature of their links with universities.
Science public policies aim at promoting the relationship between firms and universities based on the assumption of homogeneity of the industrial space, that is, the consideration that all firms are on the same innovation platform, pursuing the same interests vis a vis universities. On the contrary, we conclude that heterogeneity is a fundamental feature of industrial space at the national and the European level. Firms, defining different platforms, requiring different types of knowledge and acting in different market segments, structure the industrial innovation space.
To satisfy industry needs, insisting on the idea of linking universities and firms, would therefore require a stratification of universities producing different types of knowledge according to industrial heterogeneity. If this idea succeeds, it might provide a new criteria to rank universities.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006