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Reforming Higher Education pp 145–173Cite as

Governance of Universities and Scientific Innovation

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Part of the book series: Higher Education Dynamics ((HEDY,volume 41))

Abstract

In this chapter the tension between the tendency of scientific disciplines to “diversify” and the capacities of universities to give new scientific fields an institutional “home” is tackled. The assumption is that new scientific fields must find support among scientists and cognitive units of universities in order to be included. As science is a strongly competitive social field, inclusion often meets resistance. It is argued in this chapter that opportunities for new scientific fields to be included depend on the kind of governance regimes ruling universities. A comparison of the former bureaucratic-oligarchic governance model in most European universities with the existing new public management governance model demonstrates that the propensity of universities to include new scientific fields has increased though there might be a price to pay in terms of which fields stand a chance of being integrated and in terms of institutional possibilities for the invention of new ideas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A “competition view of science“ is not considered to be a distinctive approach in the sociology of science. Rather, various authors who would not consider them as belonging to one school refer to similar dynamics of scientific production and reproduction, though the use of concepts and their interpretation may still differ. Bourdieu (1975, 2001), Whitley (2000, 2003, 2008), Ziman (2000), and authors arguing from the perspective of “economics of science” (Brock and Durlauf 1999; Kitcher 1995; Mirowski and Sent 2002) belong to this group as does the early work of Latour and Woolgar (1979) and Hagstrom (1965). Recently, Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008) pointed to similar views in the “resource-based view” in organizational sociology. Basic elements in this approach are presumably that science is considered to be a field of cognitive development and also a social field in which actors interact as if in a scientific market. Scientists are driven by curiosity but more importantly by social recognition (reputation) and material advancement of their status in the scientific community. Scientists have individual career interests. As in all markets, the producers of the scientific good are in competition with each other and the use of scientific power and authority in order to gain competitive advantage are important elements in this competition. The dynamics of science, including scientific innovation, are therefore profoundly influenced by competition and social conflicts in the scientific community.

  2. 2.

    Or in the words of Bourdieu (1975: 28): “The dominant are committed to conservation strategies aimed at ensuring the perpetuation of the established scientific order to which their interests are linked.”

  3. 3.

    The bureaucratic-oligarchic model is one model of many, though it is probably the best diffused in Europe. France and the UK differed from this model (Ben-David 1971) as did the East European countries. We will only focus here on the transition from the bureaucratic-oligarchic to the new public management model, as space and time in this chapter are restricted.

  4. 4.

    Such variables have been subject to frequent discussion in the rich literature on university and governance types (see Braun and Merrien 1999a; Clark 1983; De Boer et al. 2007; Vught 1989; Whitley 2008).

  5. 5.

    In fact, Bourdieu uses the notion of “capital universitaire” in exactly this sense of having administrative power in the various decision-making boards within universities (Bourdieu 2001). Participation in such boards is itself a kind of capital that can be used to advance own interests (by distributing money, employing people, etc.). We prefer to speak of administrative capital if it concerns the capital based on participation in decision-making boards and reserve the notion of university capital for the symbolic recognition of the university in a more general sense.

  6. 6.

    Organizational goals may be the answer to “societal demands” as expressed by the potential number of students in a cognitive domain: to invest in “creative research” with possible breakthroughs in scientific knowledge; to develop the potential of younger scientists ; to establish links with stakeholders; to develop and support regional development; to support promising areas of research, etc..

  7. 7.

    This is equivalent to what Lawn and Keiner have called the change from knowledge production, in which the “use-value” was relevant, to a knowledge “economy,” in which the “exchange-value” determines the value of new scientific fields (Lawn and Keiner 2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut d’Etudes Politiques et Internationales, Université de Lausanne, Géopolis – 4349, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Dietmar Braun

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  1. Dietmar Braun
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Correspondence to Dietmar Braun .

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  1. Centre de Sociologie des Organisations Sciences Po & CNRS, Paris, France

    Christine Musselin

  2. CIPES and Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Pedro N. Teixeira

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Braun, D. (2014). Governance of Universities and Scientific Innovation. In: Musselin, C., Teixeira, P. (eds) Reforming Higher Education. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7028-7_8

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