Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy

Book excerpt: University and industry, up to now relatively separate and distinct institutional spheres, are assuming tasks that were formerly largely the province of the other in the development of new technologies. A new social contract is being drawn up between the university and the larger society, in which public funding for the university is made contingent upon a more direct contribution to the economy. Has economic development become a function of the university in addition to teaching and research? As the university crosses traditional boundaries through linkages to industry, it must devise ways to make its multiple purposes compatible with each other. The impetuses include: the industrial activities of individual academics in forming firms, which take on a collective force as they become Increasingly common; the organisational inititiatives of academic administrators in establishing procedures and administrative offices for university-industry relations...