Abstract
In the last decades of the twentieth century, higher education policy in Europe was characterized by a growing emphasis on the sector’s contributions to economic development and its role in the innovation ecosystem. More recently, we can see a careful re-emergence of the political, social and academic interest in the contributions of higher education to democratic political order. This renewed interest in the democratic role and public responsibility of higher education features also prominently in the work of Pavel Zgaga. In this chapter, we will reflect upon the public responsibility of higher education as key knowledge institution in supporting and strengthening the democratic culture in European societies. The chapter starts with discussing central aspects of the relationship between higher education, knowledge, and society. Next, it is argued how the democratic role of higher education is manifested, and can be interpreted from an institutional theory perspective. The chapter ends, inspired by Pavel Zgaga’s ideas, with a number of reflections, amongst other things, on how the Covid-19 pandemic displays the democratic value of scientific knowledge.
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Notes
- 1.
See: Bonn Declaration on Freedom of Scientific Research (p. 4); https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/de/europa-und-die-welt/forschen-in-europa/europaeischer-forschungsraum/europaeischer-forschungsraum_node.html, accessed 18 March, 2021.
- 2.
This can be illustrated by referring to the early history of Harvard College in the USA (Correa, 2013), the establishment of the University of Oslo in 1811 as part of the early history of the building of the Norwegian nation-state, or the central role of the university in the development of the post-colonial nation-states in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cloete et al., 2015).
- 3.
Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union is formulated as follows: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.” (See: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12012M002&from=EN, accessed 10 March, 2021).
- 4.
- 5.
See: https://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/higher-education/inclusive-and-connected-higher-education_en, accessed 19 March 2021.
- 6.
See, for example, the development of forestry research orientations and study programme profiles at Europe’s leading life sciences universities, such as Wageningen University, the Netherlands (https://www.wur.nl/en.htm).
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Gornitzka, Å., Maassen, P. (2022). The Democratic Role and Public Responsibility of Higher Education and Science. In: Klemenčič, M. (eds) From Actors to Reforms in European Higher Education. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09400-2_16
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