The New Production Of Knowledge

The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in

contemporay societies.Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M.

IntroductionMode 2 Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge

• The nature of research process:– The steering of research priorities– The commercialization of research– The accountability of science


• The steering of research priorities– The supranational level– The national level– The system level


• The commercialization of research– Alternative sources of funding. May determine

diversity and creativity.– Intellectual property. • The exploitation of intellectual property transforms the

organizational character of the university.• The exploitation of ‘intelectual property’ challenges the

idea (ideal?) of science as a public good.


• The accountability of science. Growing emphasis in the management of research and the efforts to evaluate its effectiveness and assess its quality.– No measurement system, however scrupulously used,

can fail to affect the behaviour of that which it seeks to measure.

– Distortions are produced and hierarchies are reinforced by the taxonomy of the assessment process itself.

– Accountability has encouraged researchers to espouse industry-style production.

• Rituals of verification.


New language• Aplication• Relevance• Contextualization• Reach-out• Technology transfer• Knowledge management.At the core of the debate lies the question about science

being scrutinized (with the consecuent lack of freedom) vs. Intelectual production as a public good that has to be in relation to the needs of society.


Mode 2• Generated within a context of application.• Trans-disciplinarity• The knowledge is product in a diversity of

places and in a diversity of types.• It is highly reflexive. Dialogic process.• Novel forms of quality controls.


• Concrete contexts.– Commercialization of research– The development of mass higher education– The role of the humanities in the production of

knowledge– Globalization. Scientific knowledge has also become

more highly integrated and distributed– Potential reconfiguration of institutions that flowed

from the wider distribution and greater reflexivity of knowledge production.

– The management of Mode 2 knowledge.


• Four key characteristics which were evident both in society and science.– The generation of uncertainty/ies, which reduces the

possibility of post-positivistic planning.– The trends towards self organization.– The emergence of new forms of ‘economic

rationality’, according to which, as in amy ‘futures’ market, the potential of science is measured by its immanent rather than its instrumental value.

– The re-constitution of time/space, of which the revolution in information and communication technology is one aspect.

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The New Production Of Knowledge