Publisher's Synopsis
Universities and industry, formerly separate and distinct institutional spheres, are now assuming each other's tasks 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 is made contingent upon a more direct contribution to the economy.;This text questions whether economic development has become a function of the university in addition to teaching and research. It states that, as the university crosses traditional boundaries through links to industry, it must devise ways to make its multiple purposes compatible with each other.;The book discusses elements such as: the industrial activities of individual academics in forming firms, which take on a collective force as they become increasingly common; the organizational initiatives of academic administrators in establishing procedures and administrative offices for university-industry relations; and conflict of interest controversies over linkages with industry. The contributors to this study recommend a new spiral model of innovation to capture multiple reciprocal linkages at different stages of the capitalization of knowledge. They ask how these developments in the knowledge infrastructure affect the intellectual organization of the disciplines, and whether there is co-evolution between new technologies and developments in their cognitive and institutional environments. Finally, they discuss the degree to which academic-industrial collaboration changes the role of the university as a source of disinterested expertise.
