A Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government
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 initiatives of academic administrators in establishing procedures and administrative offices for university - industry relations; and conflict of interest controversies over linkages with industry.
A new spiral model of innovation is required to capture multiple reciprocal linkages at different stages of the capitalization of knowledge. How do these developments in the knowledge infrastructure affect the intellectual organisation of the disciplines? Is there a co-evolution between new technologies and developments in their cognitive and institutional environments? Among the effects, the degree to which academic-industrial collaboration changes the role of the university as a source of disinterested expertise is also examined.
