development of post-apartheid policies in higher education and training (HET) and in .... Technological change is occurring at such a rapid pace that any given.
Chapter One CHANGING MODES: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE MODE 2 KNOWLEDGE DEBATE AND ITS IMPACT ON SOUTH AFRICAN POLICY FORMULATION Andre Kraak This book traces the influence of an important body of international literature on the development of post-apartheid policies in higher education and training (HET) and in science and technology (S&T). This literature, as well as the discussion it has triggered in South Africa, has come to be known as the 'Mode 2' debate. Two books in this body of knowledge stand out as seminal. The first, published in 1994 and authored by Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott and Trow, is entitled The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. The second book is a 1995 work authored by Scott (although shaped largely by the approach developed in Gibbons et al.) entitled The Meanings of Mass Higher Education. Gibbons and Scott have published several additional book and journal articles on the subject and clearly lead the Mode 2 debate. (See also Gibbons, 1998, and Scott, 1998.) The Mode 2 thesis arises out of a set of inter-related 'cause and effect' phenomena, as illustrated in Table 1. The key causal dynamic illustrated is the seemingly contradictory rise of both globalisation and democratisation, the latter phenomenon referring to the expansion of access to learning in HET over the past two decades. According to the logic of Scott (1995) and Gibbons et al. (1994), the effect of these politico-economic determinants on education and training has been felt in two dramatic ways: A fundamental transition has taken place in the functioning and structure of higher education institutions world-wide. This has entailed a shift away from elite and insular institutions toward more open and responsive systems of teaching and learning. A new mode of knowledge production has emerged, which Scott and Gibbons et al. term 'Mode 2'. It is fundamentally different from disciplinary science and research as we know it today - what they term 'Mode 1'. The new mode of knowledge production is intrinsically trans-disciplinary, trans-institutional and heterogeneous. In short, Mode 2 is problem-solving knowledge.
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TABLE 1 Key Factors in the Emergence of Mode 2 Knowledge Production Cause
Effect
The Mode 2 thesis is not merely a description of a new way of carrying out transdisciplinary research. More importantly, it is an outcome of powerful social forces (globalisation and the democratisation of access) that are making a simultaneous impact, and that have resulted in dramatic changes in the structure and functioning of higher education institutions. It is this composite notion of Mode 2 - reading the new research mode together with its associated changes in HET and the knowledge economy - that will be discussed in this introductory chapter. Globalisation Scott (1995) and Gibbons et al. (1994) underpin their thesis on knowledge production with an analysis of the changes occurring in the global economy, Borrowing from much of the growing international literature on globalisation, they describe the main changes as being: The attainment of flexibility and adaptability in the knowledge economy: Globalisation arose as the outcome of three simultaneous developments in the advanced economies of the world; the demise of Fordist production regimes and the onset of global economic crisis in the mid-1970s; the advent of information technology in the early 1980s, and in particular its facilitation of the internationalisation of finance capital; and the rise of innovative forms of work organisation in the early 1980s, now referred to as 'flexible specialisation' or 'post-Fordism'. The new economic system that emerged from these three developments is characterised by high-quality export manufacture aimed at specific consumer niche markets. Innovation is at the heart of this new system - the ability to continuously reinvent products and add value to existing designs through reconfiguring new information and knowledge about product and process. 10
The Cold War military-industrial complex and the development of information technology: The obsession within the USA and the NATO alliance about securing military superiority over the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold war era in the 1960s and 1970s led to a massive investment in research and development (R&D) infrastructure, both within universities and in joint ventures between universities, industry and the military on a scale not previously witnessed. This early investment represented the starting point in the evolution of Mode 2 knowledge (Walshok, 1995:9-10). Perhaps the most important by-product of the defence-industry-higher education triad has been the enormous scientific development in the telecommunications and information technology fields. These innovations have amplified the scale along which trans-disciplinary cross-fertilisation and communication are taking place. They have also enhanced the possibilities for reconfiguring knowledge through the introduction of highly sophisticated computational systems in solving social, economic and industrial problems (Gibbons et al., 1994:45). The emergence of the networking firm: A further feature of the new global economy is the seemingly paradoxical rise of relations of both competition and co-operation (networking) between firms in related product markets. Enterprises participating in purely competitive markets aim to eliminate competitors through self interested and hostile market behaviour - often through cost competition. However, under the new conditions of production which emphasise quality, design configuration and continuous innovation, such opportunistic behaviour is regarded as short-sighted. Constant product market innovations, technological breakthroughs, access to expertise and a skilled workforce are often beyond the means of a single firm but are feasible through co-operation amongst a number of firms, By collaborating around R&D, training, marketing and producer-supplier relations, firms gain access to the knowledge and expertise of other firms, reduce the costs of R&D, and through joint innovation are able to design new processes and products. The individual firm is able to project its skill-base to a higher level. Firms then retreat back to a cycle of competition. The apparent paradox of competition giving rise to collaboration is resolved only once the link between the requirements of global competitiveness (continuous improvement and innovation) and the fruits of networking and collaboration (the reduction of R&D costs, joint education and training, and the sharing of new innovations) are clearly understood. New education and training demands: All of the above developments brought with them new education and training (ET) demands - for example, the need for a highly skilled labour force able to employ the new technologies and add value to existing goods and services. However, it is not merely specialised skills that are needed; more well-rounded and diverse skill competencies are in demand. Enterprises require entire labour forces that are sufficiently skilled to adapt to unpredictable and volatile global product markets and rapid technological change. They require broad problem-solving skills to anticipate flaws in production. Workers need to understand how the new technologies can be optimally applied, how the entire production process unfolds, how the environmental context shapes the execution of tasks, and how unexpected factors arise. It is the ability to retool and respond quickly to rapidly changing market conditions that is highly valued. Only the Education and Training system can provide these capabilities through high levels of generalised yet unspecified skills which are in excess of those currently needed but which in the future will be in great demand. Writers have referred to these generalised capacities as 'skill 11
portability' and 'learning power'. 'Portability' is the capacity to carry a substantial portion of skill from one work context to the next. 'Learning power' is defined as the ability to deepen and widen skills independently in the post-school years. These two qualities cannot be satisfactorily developed outside of general education and certainly are not developed in narrow enterprise-based systems of training. The acquisition of multifunctional skill capabilities constitutes the only means to cope with the uncertain skill demands of tomorrow. (For further analysis of globalisation, see Piore & Sabel, 1984; Maurice et al., 1986; Dertouzos et al., 1989; Harvey, 1989; Streeck, 1992; Locke et al., 1995; Castells, 1996.) Democratisation A second causal factor in the emergence of Mode 2 research and in the dramatic changes that have taken place in the structure and functioning of HET institutions is the democratisation or 'massification' of access to higher learning. Massification, although related to the rapidly expanding high skill needs of modernising national economies over the past four to five decades, has also arisen as a result of a very different trajectory: egalitarian pressures over the past three decades to reduce the gross social inequalities in a number of societies across the globe by making access to further and higher education more available to working class and other marginalised communities. The dual impact of these external and internal shocks globalisation and massification - has led to a major shift in the institutional organisation and delivery of higher education programmes since the late 1980s. In most higher education institutions, the mass training of skilled professionals has come to constitute their main function. The research function is a minority activity. The majority activity at these institutions is the offering of professional programmes, often in professional schools such as those for engineering, medicine, management studies and architecture. With the massification of higher education over the past four decades has come the proliferation of highly skilled professionals across civil society - the creation of a skilled citizenry. The capacity for intellectual creativity and scientific innovation has been more widely distributed than ever before across different social institutions. This development is profound because, for the first time in higher education's history, there are now far mare skilled professionals, knowledge workers and knowledge organisations outside rather than within the formal boundaries of universities. This factor, along with innovative developments in the research realm, have led to the emergence of what Gibbons et al. and Scott have described as Mode 2 knowledge production. Mode 2 research is founded precisely on the massification of professional experts in industry and civil society, who together with scientists from higher education are able to work outside of the straitjacket of disciplinary science in more informal trans-disciplinary teams with the aim of solving social problems in specific fields of application. Impact one: The shift from a closed to an open HET system The simultaneous widening of access and the emergence of new skill demands arising out of the knowledge economy have led to an impressive growth in programme offerings at higher educational institutions, going way beyond the provision of discipline-based degree qualifications. Much of this expansion has occurred in the fields of recurrent, continuing and professional education and training - the key access points to higher education for the working class and other previously marginalised constituencies. 12
As suggested earlier, this expansion and diversity in programme delivery, in the first instance, has been an economic response. The knowledge economy has required a more educated and better-trained work force, and this has been reflected in the massive expansion of para-professional and professional recurrent and continuing education. Technological change is occurring at such a rapid pace that any given state of occupational preparedness can be obsolete within years. This factor, in addition to the increased volume of information and specialist knowledge emerging, heightens the need for lifelong recurrent education. In the second instance, growth in recurrent and continuing education is an educational response, an attempt to improve the learning methodologies available to adult learners. For example, most part-time, recurrent and continuing education occurs within 'open learning' systems - residential or contact-time combined with distance education methods, and in some instances with the assistance of information technologies. This new open learning methodology is particularly appealing to the corporate sector who are concerned with the loss of working hours that would be incurred by staff on full-time studies, and to adult learners who can only study part-time. Scott (1995:156) elaborates on these innovations in recurrent and continuing education: They include the development of access courses designed to increase the flow of non-traditional students into universities and colleges; a greater willingness to accept non-standard entry requirements, including the assessment of prior (and experiential) learning; the growth of university/college partnerships which allow students to study the early years of degree courses in local colleges on franchised courses; the increasing popularity of modular degree schemes which enable students to choose more imaginative combinations of units; the introduction of credit accumulation and transfer systems (CATS); the transformation of continuing professional development; and the provision of higher education in nonacademic settings, most prominently in the so-called 'corporate classroom'.
The proliferation of recurrent, continuing and professional teaching programmes has important implications for the organisation of knowledge in higher education institutions. All of these programmatic initiatives represent - to use Peter Scott's (1995) terminology - the eroding of the dominance of elite academic cultures on the one hand and the incorporation of more communitarian and work-based knowledge competencies on the other. This phenomenon can be understood as the formation of hybrid knowledge constructs - or to use Bernstein's (1996) concepts - the greater merging of vertical (disciplinary) knowledge with horizontal (work or communitybased) experiential competencies. Scott (1995:178) elaborates: ... mature students on franchised degrees in further education colleges do not possess the same intellectual resources as most (not all) students at Oxford and Cambridge, the tacit knowledge of social clues and the internalised values of expert disciplines. Nor, more practically, can colleges ever expect to possess equivalent resources, in terms of highly qualified teachers or richly stocked libraries. But this does not mean that either mature students or FE colleges are without resources of a different kind. Where Oxbridge students draw on the closed systems of elite culture and expert knowledge, local mature students may draw on the open systems of community involvement or work (or life) experience.
The new emphasis on programmes is therefore about making higher education knowledge and qualifications more responsive to contemporary societal and economic needs. In so doing, it provides for the radical reworking of the intellectual culture of higher education, and universities in particular, away from elite and insular institutions toward more open and responsive systems of teaching and learning. 13
Scott argues that the net result of all of these pressures - both external and internal - has led to a shift from closed to open intellectual systems in the academic arena. This shift entails an epistemological transition away from closed knowledge systems managed only by canonical norms and collegial authority to open systems which are dynamically interactive with outside social interests and knowledge structures. This shift has impacted on both the teaching (learning) and research functions of higher education institutions. First, the increase in enrolments from a wider array of social classes and age groups, with students from a diverse range of life and work experiences, has led to an equivalent shift in the 'higher learning' function of institutions, There has been a move away from the elite cultures and expert knowledges of privileged middle classes (the traditional constituency of elite institutions), to incorporate the values of non-elite communities, particularly the practical competencies required in semi-professional, professional and community life. Higher education institutions are now offering a greater mix of programmes, some based strictly on disciplinary knowledge and canonical norms, others emphasising the development of professional competence in the workplace. Second, the transformation of the research function is perhaps the most fundamental transition yet, with the emergence of Mode 2 forms of knowledge production which involve many more players than university intellectuals, and which are transdisciplinary and accountable to larger social and economic needs than is currently the case. Table 2 highlights the main features in this shift to open HET systems. Four key changes in the shift to an open system Scott identifies four key changes that are associated with the shift towards a mass, open HET system. These are: From courses to credits: The main currency of traditional (elite) higher education institutions are the courses they offer and the qualifications they certificate. These qualifications are associated with powerful canonical assumptions about the need for structured and sequential learning and the need to socialise students into the rules and rituals of particular disciplines and professional cultures. The emphasis within an open system of HET, however, is towards new forms of curricular organisation such as modular degree schemes, credit accumulation and transfer schemes, and outcomesbased assessment. These new mechanisms offer points of entry and exit without slavish regard to the academic symmetry of the whole. Rather, in a credits-based system, connections between academic topics and levels are pragmatically derived rather than cognitively
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TABLE 2 Transformation In Higher Education From Elite To Mass, Open Systems Elite Systems
Mass, Open Systems
Discipline-based
Programme-based
Maintenance of the canonical traditions of science critical
Responsiveness to society and economy
Knowledge important for its own sake, not because of its instrumental value
Plural, heterogeneous
Size and Shape
Mostly binary or trinary systems
Tendency towards unified or single systems with a high degree of programme and institutional diversity
Boundaries
Hard, rigid
Soft, permeable
Relations to Society
Insular
Open, accountable
Academic peers the key external reference
Partnerships with industry, society and other HET and FET institutions
Formal, academic
Hybrid formations: mixes between academic and professional/tacit knowledge
Key Features
Knowledge Structures
Discipline-based Organisational Forms
Donnish collegiality, canonical
Managerial; programmatic
Single-discipline Departments; Faculties
Trans-disciplinary Schools; trans-institutional projects
Mode of Delivery
Contact-residential teaching in disciplinebased degrees
Diverse delivery modes: contact-residential; distance and resource-based learning; recurrent and adult education programmes; lifelong learning; certificated short course training
Access
Restricted
Extended
Mainly young members of the elite middle class
More diverse learner constituencies: young students and working adults; members of previously marginalised groups such as workers, women and blacks
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prescribed (Scott, 1995:74-75). In many countries (for example, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and South Africa) these changes are buttressed by the implementation of a unified national qualifications framework (NQF) which institutionalises these principles of credit accumulation and portability, of regular entrance and exit points, and of seamless learning along an interconnected qualifications ladder across the entire national ET system. From departments to programmes: The second change is a shift away from discipline-based departments to 'looser frameworks which set the rules and boundaries within which the new credits currency can operate' (Scott,1995:76). Increasingly, the tendency is towards the formation of looser academic structures such as 'Schools' built around transdisciplinary theme categories such as 'Cultural Studies' or 'Environmental Sciences'. This is a substantive change because previously Departments were the organisational embodiment of the disciplinary codes and values around which academics sought their identity. Schools, while threatening the identity of disciplines, are more flexible and successful in putting together trans-departmental, trans-institutional and trans-disciplinary collaborative efforts between multiple knowledge producers and users. From subject-based teaching to student-based learning: With the emergence of mass HET provision, the shift to student-centred learning has been primarily a logistical and only secondarily a pedagogic phenomenon. It is less labour-intensive than the traditional model of student tutoring and provides HET institutions with important costefficiencies. It also provides students with far greater choice and ownership of their customised modular packages, with the teacher playing the role of facilitator rather than expert. From knowledge to competence: Traditional notions of the knowledge that students acquire through academic learning are that they are provisional, contested and problematical. It is for this reason that critical thinking skills are considered the central capability in traditional academic learning - to interrogate the 'problematic' and 'incompleteness' of current knowledge. The shift to 'competence' comprises a very different view of the higher education enterprise - 'one where knowledge skills can be sufficiently complete to be operationalised into identifiable skills' (Scott, 1995:79). These developments have come about in part to make more explicit and transparent the outcomes expected from non-traditional adult and mature learners who are now accessing higher learning in large numbers.
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Towards a unified system and institutional differentiation These dramatic developments have had the effect of moving national systems of HET away from binary or divided systems towards more unified single systems with common features and a homogenising mission. Indeed, convergence of this kind is a reality in many national systems as rigid functional distinctions between universities and polytechnics (technikons) are diluted in response to the multiple impact of massification, globalisation and institutional creep. However, the erosion of functional differences between previously distinct types at each end of the binary divide does not suggest the rise of uniform missions for all institutions in mass systems. Indeed, system-wide dichotomy has given way to institutional-level pluralism and diversity: ... the erosion of binary systems does not mean that the process of differentiation in ... higher education systems has slowed; rather it has become too rapid and volatile to be expressed through sectorisation. Instead differentiation has begun to operate at the institutional, or subinstitutional, level (Scott, 1995: 169).
Institutions within mass HET systems no longer function according to their singular missions of the past. These binary categorisations have become inflexible and incapable of adapting to the increasing pluralism and volatility within the system. Institutions must now respond to a multiple array of complex missions. This occurs largely because of the differentiating effects of the market to which mass HET institutions must be responsive, the current ceaseless accommodation of new roles (for example, Mode 2 research and consultancies, continuing professional development, information technology, and training in the corporate classroom), but also because of the incorporation of diverse sub-sectors into a single unified HET system. Even within an increasingly unified system, historically acquired diversity is never entirely lost. Rather, these institutions converge within a unified system because their boundaries are now far more permeable than before, enabling partnerships and new institutional configurations across old divides. Institutions must seek their distinctiveness and competitiveness vis-à-vis other institutions, not so much from the old essentialist definitions of institutional type but by customising individualised ET niche areas in which they wish to excel. It is clear from the above discussion that a unified or mass higher education system is characterised by a range of seemingly contradictory impulses. On the one hand, it will massify and will require a single system of regulation to effectively manage it. On the other hand, it will differentiate by providing a wider range of course offerings and research services in new and innovative forms of delivery. HET has become more dynamic and volatile than ever before, with multiple pressures reshaping its contours. Higher education today is far more permeable, responsive and open, with 'system' boundaries less clear and less stable than during the past 'elite' era. Most 'systems' cannot be defined as 'ideal-types' but are in fact hybrid formations with old elements from past elite and binary structures coexisting with newer elements that tend towards unified formations, The challenge of new state policy on higher education today is not so much to try to specify the exact institutional shape - for example, a binary or unified structure - but rather to place the greatest emphasis on the regulatory environment. The regulatory environment will have a dual task: to establish a single, coherent national system of norms, rules and procedures to 'steer' the entire higher education project in directions which are consonant with key economic, social and cultural goals; and to facilitate in an orderly fashion the diversity and responsiveness now an intrinsic part of all modern systems of higher education.
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Impact two: The emergence of Mode 2 knowledge production Scott (1995) and Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that a second fundamental transformation is occurring, leading to the emergence of a new mode of knowledge organisation which is taking shape outside of existing academic disciplines and, in part, outside the insularity of the traditional university. This new knowledge has its origins in the synergy and cross-fertilisation taking place in the interstices between established disciplines and in the interaction of academic scientists with other knowledge practitioners located in firms, parastatals and civil society, all of whom are participants in the quest for industrial innovation and social renewal. Gibbons et al. and Scott argue that the key feature of this new form of knowledge production is trans-disciplinarity - which they term Mode 2 knowledge. It arises in the interstices of existing disciplines, and therefore is 'generated in the context of application' instead of being developed first and then applied to the context later. As such, Mode 2 knowledge has two additional qualities: it is organisationally diverse and heterogeneous. Organisational diversity arises because Mode 2 is the outcome of teams of knowledge workers with diverse backgrounds, who in most cases are employed in pursuit of innovation by networking firms - they include academicians, R&D designers, production engineers, skilled craftsmen and social scientists. The networked enterprise, which is the centrepiece of the new global economy, has clearly assisted in the development of a 'networked' mode of knowledge production Mode 2. Mode 2 knowledge is heterogeneous because its solutions comprise both empirical and theoretical components, cognitive and non-cognitive elements in novel and creative ways. As such, these hybrid sciences blur the boundaries between the established disciplines (Mode 1 sciences); they are not readily integrated within the participating cluster of disciplines. In this sense, Mode 2 is not inter-disciplinary as it cuts across all academic disciplines. Table 3 highlights some of the key distinguishing features of these two knowledge forms. The above analysis has provided a brief account of the nature and content of the Mode 2 thesis and the concomitant changes which have been brought about in the structure and functioning of HET. The next section will explore the ways in which this debate has been influential in South African policy making.
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TABLE 3 The Characteristics Of Mode 1 and Mode 2 Knowledge Mode 1 Disciplinary Knowledge
Mode 2 Problem-Solving Knowledge
Disciplinarity
Trans-disciplinarity
Knowledge is formal and coded according to the canonical rules and procedures of academic disciplines
Knowledge is problem-oriented; it attempts to salve problems by drawing on multiple disciplines, which interact in the real-world contexts of use and application, yielding solutions and new knowledge which are not easily reducible to any of the participating academic disciplines.
Homogeneous production sites
Heterogeneous, tanks-institutional production sites
The development of disciplinary knowledge has historically been associated with universities and other institutions of higher education. These institutions often exist in (ivory tower) isolation from real-world problems.
Knowledge is produced in multiple sites by problem-solving teams with members emanating from various institutions: from Higher Education institutions, networking enterprise R&D laboratories, state S&T institutes, and NGO think tanks. Formal partnerships and joint ventures forged between these actors to generate new knowledge and exploit its commercial potential are common.
Insular knowledge
Socially useful knowledge
The only reference points for disciplinary knowledge are academic peers and the canonical rules and procedures internal to the academic discipline.
Many of the problems addressed by transdisciplinary and trans-institutional knowledge workers today are of great social importance or commercial value. This is socially accountable knowledge.
Impact on South African higher education policy formulation New government policy on HET has been fundamentally shaped by the analytical framework developed by Gibbons et al. and Scott. The politico-economic underpinnings of change in HET emphasised by these researchers - globalisation and massification - feature prominently in the new HET policy documents. Key recommendations in the policy documents reflect the analysis of institutional change put forward by Gibbons et al. and Scott. They include: a shift to a more open and responsive HET system; greater emphasis on programmatic rather than disciplinarybased provision; and the adoption of a single co-ordinated national system of HET that emphasises homogeneity in the regulatory environment and pluralism in the institutional missions of diverse HET providers. The recommendations also create an enabling environment in which Mode 2 research will flourish. The next section discusses the content of each of these recommendations. The key policy texts that are referred to include the Final Report of the National commission on Higher Education (NCHE), entitled A Framework for Transformation (1996); the 19
Department of Education's Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation (DoE, 1996); the Education White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education (DoE, 1997); and the Higher Education Act of 1997. Dual pressures: Privileging globalisation and the knowledge economy The new HET policy documents emphasise globalisation and democratisation as the two centrally determining social forces that have driven the transformation and reconfiguration of HET internationally. This dual causality for change in HET arises in South Africa, firstly, because of the need to redress the effects of apartheid in the educational realm and to construct new social relationships between state, civil society and ET institutions, and secondly, because of South Africa's re-insertion into a highly competitive and volatile world economy: The transformation of higher education is part of the broader process of South Africa's political, social and economic transition, which includes political democratisation, economic reconstruction and development, and redistributive social policies aimed at equity. This national agenda is being pursued within a distinctive set of pressures and demands characteristic of the late twentieth century, often typified as globalisation.... The policy challenge is to ensure that we engage critically and creatively with the global imperatives as we determine our national and regional goals, priorities and responsibilities. In particular, the South African economy is confronted with the formidable challenge of integrating itself into the competitive arena of international production and finance which has witnessed rapid changes as a result of new communication and information technologies. These technologies, which place a premium on knowledge and skills, leading to the nation of the 'knowledge society', have transformed the way in which people work and consume. Simultaneously, the nation is confronted with the challenge of reconstructing domestic social and economic relations to eradicate and redress the inequitable patterns of ownership, wealth and social and economic practices that were shaped by segregation and apartheid. This has resulted in the emergence of a sophisticated urban core economy with a relatively well-developed technological infrastructure and an increasingly highly educated skilled labour force, co-existing side-by-side with a peripheral rural and informal urban economy from which the majority of the population, previously denied access to education and training and restricted to unskilled labour, eke out a living (DoE,1997:9).
South Africa is going through a unique historical phase where democratic consolidation and social reconstruction and development are priority goals. It is this particular context which makes Mode 2 forms of research so attractive to social actors across the political spectrum. At the same time, however, this same context enables the detractors of the Mode 2 thesis to argue that Mode 2 has assisted in the triumph of economic reductionism and narrow economic development over broader equity and social considerations (notwithstanding the White Paper's commitment to the dual goals of equity and development). These critical considerations will be taken up later, both in this chapter and in the other chapters of the book. The recommendations of the NCHE The analysis and recommendations of the NCHE, particularly those that have been influenced by the logic of Gibbons et al, and Scott, can be categorised into five major areas. These are: the three pillars of HET transformation: increased participation, responsiveness and partnerships, a single co-ordinated national system of HET provision, 20
institutional diversity and permeable boundaries, programme-based provision, and the emergence of Mode 2 research. The content and character of each of these recommendations is highlighted below. The three pillars of HET transformation The NCHE report (1996:15-16) identified three central features of the new framework for HET. These were: increased participation in the system by a diverse range of constituencies, increased co-operation and partnerships between higher education and other social actors and institutions, and greater responsiveness to a wide range of social and economic needs.1 The NCHE report argued that these three features represented a 'radical departure from previously divisive and fractured social structures and a move towards new and more integrative forms of social organisation' (NCHE, 1996:76). The emphasis on increased participation signified a shift away from a higher education system which 'enrols primarily middle class students into elite professional and scholarly pursuits, to a system characterised by a wider diversity of feeder constituencies and programmes' (NCHE, 1996:76; DoE,1996:18-19): In the international literature on higher education such expansion is usually described as a transition from an 'elite' to a 'mass' system, or as 'massification'. The terminology denotes mare than a mere increase in enrolment. It also refers to a series of concomitant changes that must accompany greater numbers. These include: the composition of the student body; the diversification of programmes, curricula and qualifications; the
1
These three pillars, as well as other aspects of the NCHE report, have been carved through to both the Department of Education's Green Paper (DoE, 1996:15-16) and White Paper (DoE, 1997:10) on HET, and many have found a place in the Higher Education Act of 1997. In order to avoid duplication, this analysis concentrates on material from the NCHE report. introduction of multiple entry and exit points; new relations between study and the workplace; and shifts in institutional functions and missions.... It can be anticipated that massification will lead to more flexible approaches to the higher education curriculum, as it has elsewhere. Traditional models of courses and qualifications are based on academic assumptions about the need for sequential learning in defined disciplines. These might for instance be augmented by an approach based on modular programmes and the accumulation of credits, offering multiple entry and exit points, while progression is measured in terms of pragmatic connections between topics and levels, as well as the norms of cognitive coherence (NCHE, 1996:5).
The second feature, an emphasis on co-operative forms of governance, reflected a shift away from the classical dichotomy between institutional autonomy and state intervention in higher education management to a more consensual and multiplepartner conception of governance. The Commission argued that the old relations of academic insularity and institutional self-reliance would have to make way for recognition of the functional interdependence between multiple actors with a stake in higher education. Nationally and regionally, there would have to be new linkages and partnerships between higher education institutions and commercial enterprises, parastatals, research bodies and NGOs (NCHE, 1996:8). Key amongst these new 21
relations would be new higher education-economy linkages. These linkages would imply an increase in the number of formal partnerships between higher education institutions, parastatals and private business and industrial enterprises. Such partnerships would arise 'as a result of the [new] global economic changes but also because of new forms of knowledge production which are reliant on collaboration between a range of social actors and knowledge workers' (NCHE, 1996:78). The third feature, increased responsiveness, indicated a shift away from 'academic insularity, a closed system governed primarily by the norms and procedures of established disciplines, towards an open higher education system which interacts more with its societal environment' (NCHE, 1996:76): At an epistemological level, increased responsiveness entailed a shift from closed knowledge systems (controlled and driven by canonical norms of traditional disciplines and by collegially recognised authority) to more open knowledge systems (in dynamic interaction with external social interests, 'consumer' or 'client' demand, and other processes of knowledge generation). Such interaction will lead to the incorporation of the perspectives and values of previously silenced groups into the educational and cognitive culture of institutions. Higher education institutions will increasingly have to offer a greater mix of programmes, including those based on the development of vocationally-based competencies and skills needed in the workplace (NCHE, 1996:6-7).
A single co-ordinated national system of HET provision The second category of recommendations made by the NCHE was that 'higher education in South Africa should be conceptualised, planned, governed and funded as a single co-ordinated system' (NCHE, 1996:89). The need for such a system arose because of what the Commission perceived to be an absence of any sense of 'system' in South African higher education. Three major systemic deficiencies were noted: There was a chronic mismatch between higher education's output and the needs of a modernising economy. There was a strong inclination towards closed-system disciplinary approaches and programmes that has led to inadequately conceptualised teaching and research. The content of the knowledge produced and disseminated was insufficiently responsive to the problems and needs of the African continent, the southern African region, or the vast numbers of poor and rural people in our society. There was a lack of regulatory frameworks, because of a long history of organisational and administrative fragmentation and weak accountability. This inhibited planning and co ordination, the elimination of duplication and waste, the promotion of better articulation and mobility, and the effective evaluation of quality and efficiency (NCHE, 1996:2). Overcoming this legacy of fragmentation and inefficiency would require: ... system-wide and institutional planning processes able to co-ordinate the overall shape and size of the system…. The Commission believes that a single co-ordinated system of higher education requires the development, through consultation and negotiation, of an overall national higher education plan. This will be a major change from current practice in which decisions about overall student enrolments, and their distribution across different programme levels and fields, are not made at a system level (NCHE, 1996:112).
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Key tools in the creation of a single co-ordinated system of HET would be the development and subsequent utilisation of coherent planning instruments both at national and institutional levels. The HET policy documents envisage two types of 'plan', They are: A National Higher Education Plan: The NCHE argued that a National Higher Education Plan is pivotal to the goal of effective co-ordination in HET (NCHE, 1996:93,115). The Plan would be developed on a rolling three-year basis. Its aim would be to establish a programme mix which was 'broadly in line with emerging national and regional needs which will require system-wide and institutional planning processes able to coordinate the overall shape and size of the system' (NCHE, 1996:112). Institutional Plans: On the basis of guidelines provided by the National Plan, HET institutions would then be required to devise three-year rolling plans which would include; institutional mission statements; proposed programmes; indicative targets for enrolment levels by programme, race and gender equity goals; and proposed measures to develop new programme areas (see NCHE, 1996:93,113; DoE, 1997:19). Such an institutional plan would be expected to 'take into account the unique or distinctive mission of the institution, and be informed by student demand, by labour market requirements, by societal equity and development needs and by the new demands of knowledge production in the context of technological innovation and globalisation' (DoE, 1998:3). lnstitutional diversity and permeable boundaries Even though the NCHE proposed a single co-ordinated system with strong homogenising tendencies and central planning imperatives, the Commission was at pains to emphasise the need for on-going institutional diversity and flexibility regarding boundaries - thereby mirroring Scott's own emphasis on institutional pluralism and permeable boundaries. The Commission argued: The wide array of higher education programmes makes the boundaries of higher education difficult to define. So do conceptions of lifelong learning, the recognition of prior learning and articulation and transfer between further and higher education. All pre-suppose a continuum of learning that makes it extremely difficult to draw hard boundaries around higher learning.... The Commission's task, therefore, is not to propose a unified, binary or stratified institutional structure for the single co-ordinated system, but to recommend transitional arrangements that will hold while national and regional needs mature, while planning and other capacities are developed, and while institutional development takes place.... The Commission's view [is that] in the medium to long term, global and South African conditions are likely to push the single co-ordinated system towards a more responsive, dynamic and 'fuzzy' relationship between institutions and programmes rather than towards a new binary or stratified system.... The Commission [therefore] believes that the primary challenge of a state policy on higher education is not firstly to try and specify the exact system (for example, a stratified, binary or unified structure) but rather to place greater emphasis on obtaining systemic coherence and ensuring diversity through a regulatory environment. The regulatory environment will have several tasks: firstly, to create the conditions that enable optimal levels of co-operation and responsiveness; secondly, to establish a single, coordinated national system of policies and procedures to steer the entire higher education system in directions consistent with key economic, social and cultural goals; and thirdly, to facilitate in an orderly fashion the diversity of programme offerings (NCHE, 1996:85,102-103,165).
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The new system should ensure diversity in terms of institutional missions and programme mixes. This should evolve in 'terms of a planned process based on the recognition and pragmatic consideration of current institutional missions and capacities on the one hand, and emerging national and regional needs and priorities an the other. Over time it will be possible to assess whether the new system should retain the distinction between universities, technikons and colleges, change the nature of the distinction, and increase or decrease the number of institutional types' (NCHE, 1996:167; see also DoE, 1997:23-24). Programme-based provision A fourth category of NCHE recommendations strongly influenced by Gibbons et al. and Scott is the notion of 'programmes' and 'programmatic provision'. Programmes are viewed as key instruments in the creation of a future single co-ordinated system. Programmes provide 'a clear means of reducing the potential chaos of an unlimited number of courses and qualifications to a form compatible with system-wide planning, goal-directed funding and effective quality assurance' (NCHE, 1996:85). In the past, learner mobility was restricted by the rigid boundaries which separated the differing sub-sectors of the education and training system (colleges, technikons and universities) and by the terminal qualifications on offer. Diverse course provision was constrained by a bureaucratically managed, unresponsive and supply-led system of higher education provision. In contrast, the new National Qualifications Framework (NQF) - which was formally established by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) Act of 1996 and supported by the NCHE - attempts to resolve all of these constraints by allowing progression and diversity through its credit accumulation and transfer capabilities. The NQF espouses a philosophy of lifelong learning that envisages learners enrolling for modular components of programmes at differing sites of provision and at different moments in their learning lives. These learners will accumulate a flexible combination of credits over time that will eventually earn them the award of a qualification. A programmes-based definition of qualifications is founded on the nation that a programme rather than an institutional focus will result in a greater permeability and articulation across the trinary divides within higher education, thereby promoting progression and diversity of provision (NCHE, 1996:86). A 'programme' is a course offering available at multiple institutional sites of provision using multiple modes of delivery (distance, contact and open learning), and made up of multiple credit units which can be accumulated by learners over time. These units entail both academic and vocational foci which, when combined holistically in a qualification, create a more career-oriented or professional set of competencies which have immediate currency in the labour market and which enhance employability (see DoE, 1997:18). The South African interpretation of 'programmes' as described above captures many of the new structural features of contemporary HET systems identified by Gibbons et al. and Scott, including; shifts from courses to credits, from departments to programmes, from subject-based teaching to student-based learning, and from knowledge to competence (Scott, 1995:74-79).
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The emergence of Mode 2 research The fifth and final category of recommendations made by the NCHE comprises its overview of developments in research practice world-wide and its incorporation of the Mode 2 thesis: A century ago universities could claim to be the leading sites of knowledge production, but this pre-eminent role has been eroded by the development of multiple sites of research and knowledge production outside the higher education system. Multinational and private sector research laboratories; national scientific, cultural and research councils; and a plethora of industrial and commercial organisations are active in the research and knowledge business. The major change is that knowledge is not only generated in its traditional basic and discipline-driven manner in the university, but in new forms in the market and community, and crucially in the interface between higher education and society.... The world is entering a new period where the social organisation of knowledge and learning is changing dramatically. Knowledge increasingly adds value in the information economy and society. These developments have major implications for the higher education system today. The major change, as mentioned earlier, is that knowledge is generated not only in its traditional manner in the universities. Knowledge production becomes an increasingly open system in which a number of actors from different disciplines and from outside higher education participate. The value of knowledge is assessed not only on scientific criteria but also on utilitarian and practical grounds. Funding is almost always from more than one source requiring different forms of interaction, accountability and management. Knowledge is increasingly trans-disciplinary and trans-institutional (a widened social base participating in its construction) and new types of quality assurance and funding are emerging in response to these trends (NCHE, 1996:125-126; see also DoE, 1996:35, and DoE, 1997:31).
The NCHE employed the concept of a research spectrum that identified four interdependent categories of research: traditional, applications-driven, strategic, and participation-based research. The NCHE adopted a balanced view of this spectrum, arguing that the development of 'strong national capacity across the full research spectrum was more important than individual peaks of excellence on their own' (NCHE, 1996:126). All of these categories of research needed support. The NCHE, nonetheless, also supported the emphasis in the Department of Arts, Culture Science and Technology's White Paper on Science and Technology (1996) on 'maintaining cutting edge global competitiveness and on addressing the urgent need for reconstruction and development' (NCHE, 1996:127). This emphasis on 'responsiveness' and 'relevance' to national need is significant, for, as will be seen in the next section, both the NCHE and the White Paper on Science and Technology set the scene for the privileging of Mode 2 problem-solving research within the new research funding regime. Impact on South African science and technology policy formulation The primary aim of the 1996 White Paper on Science and Technology: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (DACST, 1996) is to set up a National System of Innovation (NSI) based on the core principles of partnerships, co-ordination, problem-solving, multi-disciplinary knowledge production, and a societal culture which privileges the advancement of knowledge and information in all its forms (DACST, 1996:3).
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Globalisation and S&T policy The White Paper on Science and Technology (DACST, 1996) privileges the global context as a key determining force in the formulation of a S&T policy for South Africa. It specifies two key features of globalisation that will have an impact. The first is the knowledge-based transformation of many of the world's societies as a result of the increased flow of information made possible by ever-improving global communication technologies. The White Paper recognises that 'the ability to maximise the use of information is now considered to be the single most important factor in deciding the competitiveness of countries' (DACST, 1996:5). The second feature is the competitive pressures on the South African economy as it opens up to global market forces. The White Paper argues that if niche markets are to be identified in which international competitiveness can be improved, it is imperative to invest in technology and enhance productivity. Policy choices about investing in infrastructure, in education and training, and in R&D will all have to be located 'within a framework where there is an appropriate balance between opening up the economy to global competitiveness and nurturing local initiatives' (DACST, 1996:5). The White Paper on Science and Technology argues even more forcefully than did the NCHE that new forms of knowledge production are emerging as a consequence of globalisation. The White Paper terms this phenomenon 'problem-solving knowledge' Traditional ways of producing knowledge within single disciplines and institutions are being supplemented by knowledge generated within various applied contexts. This is knowledge that is collaboratively created within multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research programmes directed to specific problems identified within social and economic systems. A national system of innovation benefits from 'knowledge practitioners' being located in multiple knowledge generating sites and institutions such as higher education institutions, government and civil society research organisations, and private sector think tanks and laboratories. It is also strengthened by adopting a problem-salving approach that seeks to draw on multiple resources that span the natural sciences, the human sciences, and the medical and health sciences. Setting up of a national system of innovation in South Africa that will stimulate such collaborative, multidisciplinary, applications-based research will require new policy, funding and organisational arrangements, including provision for training new generations of scientists and technologists oriented towards the salving of real problems (DACST, 1996:6).
The five priority areas of the NSI The National System of Innovation identifies five priority areas at the heart of the new approach to S&T. These are: Promoting competitiveness and employment creation: The White Paper recognises that the business sector must be the driving force behind enhancing competitiveness, with government providing a system of incentives and support mechanisms to meet the new challenges of highly competitive markets. This will entail a shift away from government support for R&D within its own facilities towards more comprehensive support for R&D executed in the private sector.
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Enhancing the quality of life: Key areas are environmental sustainability, health care provision, meeting basic needs at the community level, reducing the total cost of infrastructure provision, and providing safety and security to all who live and work in South Africa. Developing human resources: The White Paper argues that new approaches to education and training need to be developed that will: ... equip researchers to work more effectively in an innovative society. This will require new curricula and training programmes that are comprehensive, holistic, flexible, rather than narrowly discipline-based. Education and training in an innovative society should not trap people within constraining specialities but enable them to participate and adopt a problem-solving approach to social and economic issues within and across discipline boundaries (DACST, 1996:9).
Working towards environmental sustainability: Economic growth in South Africa must be reconciled with considerations of environ-mental impact, resource constraints and human needs. Promoting an information society: A South African vision of the information society should seek to ensure that the advantages offered by the information revolution should benefit society as a whole (DACST, 1996:8-10). Co-ordination and partnerships The modus operandi of the proposed NSI - the means by which it can be operationalised - is premised on two key principles: improved policy co-ordination and stronger social partnerships. Significantly, these are also two key defining qualities of the new HET and research environment as articulated by the ScottGibbons et al. logic. The first key principle of the NSI is an emphasis on crosssectoral state policy co-ordination. The White Paper argues: The promotion of an NSI as a framework for social and economic policy maximises the possibilities for all parts of the system to interact with each other to the benefit of individual stakeholders or groupings of stakeholders and the advancement of national goals. For example, the close co-operation between government, industry and research institutions is a pre-requisite far projects designed to produce growth and development in accordance with national goals. In essence, this document seeks to highlight the relationships between the different mechanisms of delivery of services to our people, and to outline the way DACST can play a co-ordinating role in effective and efficient implementation of interventions.... This paper looks at practical means of having DACST interact with other Departments, for example, with Trade and Industry and with Education, on S&T issues raised in the Green Paper. Equally, the national innovation policy must be carefully articulated with other overriding policies of government, such as the Growth and Development and Macroeconomic strategies (DACST, 1996:5,6, 18).
The second key principle is the need for partnerships and co-operation. Partnerships enable trans-disciplinary, applications-driven and problem-solving research by putting together teams of knowledge practitioners from differing disciplinary and professional backgrounds. It is the creative synergy of their joint efforts that yield new solutions to real social problems (Mode 2 research). Partnerships also enable economies of scale through the sharing of expertise, resources and infrastructure. Partnerships 'eliminate or reduce wasteful duplication of research activities, fragmentation of effort and lack of co-ordination between institutions. They enhance
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the diffusion of best-practise technology, increase R&D investment in the private sector and promote a performance culture' (DACST, 1996:3,43). Partnerships also assist in the balancing of state interventions and market efforts in the delivery of S&T. The White Paper suggests that: Innovation is not a trivial process. It is costly, often high risk, and generally operates on a longer time frame in years than the traditional quarterly periods or annual periods over which a company's [or the market's] performance is evaluated. Investors in innovation programmes require vision, strategic thinking and confidence. Very often they require to be driven by external competitive pressures and threats.... Government has an important role to play in the sharing of this risk and in its attempts to provide an enabling environment for innovation (DACST, 1996:16).
The Innovation Fund Perhaps the most important recommendation of the White Paper on Science and Technology is the Innovation Fund. It is a fund intended to support and encourage research and development, and will: encourage and enable longer-term, large innovation projects in the higher education sector, government science councils, civil society and the private sector; permit a reallocation of resources from the historical patterns of government science towards the key issues of competitiveness, quality of life, environmental sustainability and harnessing information technology; promote increased networking and cross-sectoral collaboration within South Africa's NSI; encourage close relationships between those conducting the research activities and those who will be expected to diffuse and make practical use of the results of those research activities; and facilitate the financing of problem-oriented research involving participants from many disciplines (DACST, 1996:30-31). It is clear that the White Paper on Science and Technology is strongly influenced by the Mode 2 thesis. The White Paper privileges research that is responsive to national economic and social needs (those that will improve South Africa's international competitiveness). It explicitly encourages problem-solving research through the formation of societal partnerships and cross-sectoral government policy coordination. More specifically, the Innovation Fund consciously seeks out transdisciplinary, trans-institutional, problem-solving research. In short, the conditions for enabling the growth of Mode 2 research have been firmly laid. The importance of the Mode 2 debate for HET in South Africa The Mode 2 thesis is important not only because of its influence on policy formulation in HET and S&T but also because it is an intrinsic part of a range of controversies that are raging currently in South African HET. The four most important of these are: whether Mode 2 research benefits the social reconstruction and development of post-apartheid South Africa; whether Mode 2 privileges research at the expense of teaching in HET institutions;
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whether the so-called marketisation and commercialisation of knowledge in HET institutions is indeed a valid observation, and if so, to what extent Mode 2 research accentuates this problem; and whether curricula in HET institutions are being further vocationalised by the push for Mode 2 research and programme-based provision. The beneficial impact of Mode 2 on social reconstruction and development Competing views are held regarding the benefits of Mode 2 for social reconstruction and development in the post-apartheid period. A range of papers have been selected for inclusion in this book which give voice to some of these competing views. The chapter by Andre Kraak on four HET institutions in the Western Cape 'Investigating New Knowledge Production: A South African Higher Education Survey' - is relatively optimistic about the impact of Mode 2 research on social reconstruction and development (although a number of limitations on its effectiveness are also outlined). Kraak maintains that the process of social reconstruction and development in South Africa provides perfect opportunities for Mode 2 research practices. In the radically changed social relationships ushered in by the new Government since 1994, co-operative partnerships are becoming the order of the day. This new environment will encourage both: the proliferation of Mode 2 trans-disciplinary knowledge practices in the fields of S&T as well as in the social, health, agricultural, environmental and other developmental sciences; the proliferation of multi-site R&D partnerships across university, state, employer and civil society agencies. A 1995 report by the Foundation for Research Development (FRD) emphasised the need for higher education to respond to the pressing needs of social reconstruction and development using an appropriate 'mix' of technologies and partnerships with other key players. This text is worth quoting in some detail because it provides useful examples of the value of Mode 2 research to social reconstruction and development: The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) should serve to empower more of the black majority, at least in the near term, through job creation and access to basic facilities and services, and thus widen the customer base for many of the industrial and agricultural fruits of technology. Executing the RDP will require great creativity in combining technology (including high-tech), with labour-intensive methods. The former is indispensable far 'delivering the goods' on the scale and within the time frame socially desirable. The latter is fundamental far job creation. The combination could be important in the construction of housing, schools, roads and other infrastructure; and in extending the portable water supply, electricity and telecommunications to rural areas and townships. The ideal technology 'mix' might combine: • high-tech solutions in new materials, processes, information systems, and/or delivery designs; with • commonly available local materials, personal interface between deliverer/provider and beneficiary, and community participation in design conception, problem solving and decision making. All this means that there will be increased demand for a whole array of applied scientists, engineers and technologists (for instance surveyors, engineers of various types, and architects) with university training (FRD, 1995:16).
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Since the publication of the FRD's report, there has been a proliferation of Mode 2 consultancies and research reports commissioned by government departments at national, provincial and local Levels, with participants recruited from the science councils, NGOs, universities, state departments and neighbouring communities. This body of research has primarily been aimed at solving acute social problems in the education, health, welfare and developmental fields. The marketisation of higher education A second position regarding Mode 2 is much more critical. This has to do with its alleged contribution to the marketisation of HET and the commercialisation of knowledge production. George Subotzky, in his contribution to this book 'Complementing the Marketisation of Higher Education: New Modes of Knowledge Production in Community-Higher Education Partnerships' - summarises the main characteristics of this emerging 'marketised' or 'entrepreneurial' university sector as entailing: the commodification of knowledge and the privatisation of intellectual property rights by corporations; research increasingly funded by non-statutory, privately commissioned sources; an emphasis on science and technology fields rather than on research that is not commercially viable; technology transfer through business-university research partnerships, consortia and specialist units, leading to proprietary intellectual rights; and a prevailing culture of entrepreneurialism and managerialism which is in direct tension with the collegiate culture of academia. This perspective is clearly the dominant one in the knowledge production and HET Literature. In fact, at an international conference held at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in September 1999 entitled Re-Organising Knowledge: Transforming Institutions, Knowing, Knowledge And The University In The TwentyFirst Century (at which the contributions by Muller, Kraak and Subotzky published in this book were presented), the dominant view supported by the majority of papers was the notion of an epochal shift in the role and function of the university. The key features of this characterisation entailed a transition: away from the idea of a university in its traditional liberal formulation as a 'house of knowledge', detached from the larger society to pursue pure disciplinary research and higher learning in a state unhindered by the narrow interests of government and business... ... to a conception of the university in the service of the market, where intellectual labour has become commercialised, serving primarily the innovation demands of the new global knowledge economy. In short, the traditional role of the university had evaporated leaving the 'house of knowledge' in a state of crisis. The work of Sheila Slaughter, an internationally acknowledged expert on HET and keynote speaker at the conference, confirmed the dominance of this view. She is coauthor with Larry Leslie of the recent seminal book, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University. Her main thesis is that the commercialisation of the academy will lead to the decline of the canonical tradition
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itself, the weakening of the professorate and scholarly research, and the triumph of a managerial mode of control in the university not unlike that of corporate capitalism (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Even though dominant, this largely pessimistic view has its own limitations. It greatly exaggerates the extent of rupture and misses the high degree of continuity within higher education from the past to the present. The new developments associated with 'the entrepreneurial university' do not constitute an epochal change from one social structure to another. For example, the university has always played a highly functional role in the development of capitalism and has always served the occupational structure with a skilled and appropriately socialised labour force. Not much has changed in this regard. The process has simply intensified because knowledge itself, and not simply skilled human capital, is now also a key commodity in the capitalist production process. It is an approach that fails to see the positive changes that have accompanied the transition to Mode 2. Indeed, another element of the Gibbons et al. and Scott thesis outlined at the beginning of this chapter is the argument that many HET systems world-wide have undergone a profound transition from what has been termed an 'elite' and 'closed' system to a more 'massified' and 'open' HET model. This transition includes changes such as: the increased 'lifelong learning' enrolments of adult learners who require retooling because of the new knowledge demands in the world of work; a greater democratisation of access to HET and the subsequent increase in participation rates in many developed and newly industrialised societies since the 1960s; and finally, a massive expansion of access because of the advances made by the new telecommunications technologies which enable new forms of higher learning opportunities using distance education, satellite-driven telematic education and open learning methodologies. This democratisation of HET has occurred alongside the transition to Mode 2 research and is entirely missed by the marketisation argument. Subotzky's take on this marketisation literature is innovative. He argues that while the entrepreneurial university poses potential advantages - better quality, efficiency and effectiveness - this marketisation discourse (and the practices and values which surround it) has the effect of reducing the wider purpose and value of higher education, which extends beyond the narrow aim of client satisfaction to include social and economic development and the fostering of critical intellectuals. His solution is to provide a counter or complement to the marketisation trend in HET what he terms the 'Community Partnerships Model'. In this approach, Mode 2 research is driven by concerns for social development rather than those that reflect only the narrow economic interests of a small privileged elite. Mode 2 ignores teaching Not all commentators of Mode 2 in South Africa are as optimistic as Kraak or Subotzky. They question the implications of Mode 2 for the university sector and for the continuation of Mode 1 disciplinary science. The chapter by Johan Muller - 'What Knowledge is of Most Worth for the Millenial Citizen?' - is an important contribution in this regard. Muller, along with other scholars, believes that although the argument regarding transformation of knowledge production is compelling, the Gibbons et al. and Scott thesis is deficient in one important regard: the authors fail to spell out the implications of the shift to Mode 2 for the continued functioning of universities and for teaching in particular. Gibbons et al, and Scott maintain that Mode 1 is an essential prerequisite for Mode 2 but only in relation to the research function of
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universities. Mode 2 constitutes the 'pluralisation of the elite function' of universities (Gibbons et al., 1994:137). The authors say little about the other major function of the modern university: the mass training of graduate professionals who occupy key positions of expertise in the occupational structure. A number of writers on higher education note that Mode 1 and Mode 2 research are minority activities within the total university system. Only 100 research universities of the 3 500 higher education institutions in the USA are involved in new knowledge creation on a large scale (Walshok, 1995:3). Research leading to new knowledge of the order described above is an exception rather than the rule in most higher education institutions (Castells, 1991:220). The majority activity at these institutions is professional education and training, often in professional schools such as those for engineering, medicine, management studies and architecture. It is the latter activities that are constitutive of what most universities do. As a consequence, the following two important qualifications need to be attached to the Mode 2 thesis: The prerequisites of Mode 2 are Mode 1 disciplinary-specific knowledge as well as more broad and generic capacities to see beyond disciplinary boundaries. This is because Mode 1 is characterised by a high degree of disciplinary specialisation and segmentation. Paradoxically, Mode 2 therefore requires its practitioners to have Mode 1 disciplinary knowledge alongside a sound general undergraduate education which can provide the intellectual tools necessary to span increasingly diverse intellectual fields. Mode 2 practitioners need to co-operate with experts from other fields and to see problems in a cross-disciplinary way (Gibbons et al., 1994:138). Mode 2 is therefore reliant on good Mode 1 education at undergraduate level, good Mode 1 education and research at postgraduate level, and largescale professional training. It is a phenomenon dependent on both the production of knowledge through research and the reproduction of knowledge through the training of professional practitioners who continuously reconfigure knowledge in contexts of application outside the boundaries of universities. Programmes and the vocationalisation of the curricula in HET A final criticism of the Mode 2 thesis is the concern articulated by Jonathan Jansen in his contribution to this book - 'Mode 2 Knowledge and Institutional Life: Taking Gibbons on a Walk Through a South African University'. Jansen looks at Engineering Studies at the University of Durban Westville, and argues that Mode 2 and the new requirements for programme-based provision are forcing a vocationalisation of the curriculum. Many other HET institutions are strongly opposed to the idea of 'programmes' because they believe it will lead to the privileging of vocational qualifications at the expense of formative academic courses. Although many of Jansen's concerns are valid and need to be taken seriously, it is ironic that HET institutions make claims about a vocationalist bias in the new HET policy framework. Much of the evidence suggests that it is the institutions themselves and not the phenomenon of Mode 2 or the concept of 'programmes' that have read the new policy framework in a highly vocationalist way. This ironic twist is borne out by the national Department of Education in its evaluation of the first institutional planning phase in the HET sector: ... literal and narrow interpretations of the white Paper are a cause for concern. This can be illustrated by way of two examples. First, the proposed shift in emphasis in institutional plans towards Science,
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Engineering and Technology (SET). This seems to be underpinned by an interpretation of the White Paper which suggests that the humanities and social sciences have a declining value as academic currency and that in future funding will be primarily routed to SET. This is clearly based on a misinterpretation of the White Paper which argues that while it is 'necessary to correct the present imbalances' in SET, this should not 'diminish the importance of programmes in the social sciences and humanities which contribute to knowledge production, in particular, to the understanding of social and human development, including social transformation'. Second, the programme-based approach to higher education outlined in the White Paper. Although not raised in the institutional plans, it became clear in the course of the institutional visits that this has created much confusion and programmes are in danger of being fetishised. The programme-based approach has been interpreted by many institutions to mean (i) that general and formative programmes would no longer be funded; (ii) that to qualify for funding all programmes would have to be linked to vocational outcomes. This has led, in some cases, to an approach to programme development that is narrowly vocationally focused and without disciplinary foundation. The White Paper makes no such claims (DoE, 1998:5-6).
Conclusion The jury is not yet out on the value and impact of the Mode 2 debate in South Africa. Included in this book are a diverse range of opinions stretching from the definitional contribution by Gibbons himself, an alternative international perspective on the emergence of new science regimes by Rip, a relatively optimistic reading by Kraak, an alternative communitarian take by Subotzky, a critical reading by Muller, and a fairly dismissive position held by Jansen. The purpose of this book is not so much to seek consensus on the phenomenon of Mode 2 nor to seek empirical proof of its existence, but rather to treat it as an abstract theoretical device which can assist in structuring our strategic thinking about current and future policy developments in HET and S&T. It is hoped that the book will succeed in providing such a conceptual device. Footnotes: 1
This material appeared as a chapter in Merle Jacob and Tomas Hellstrom (eds), 2000, The Future of Knowledge Production in the Academy, Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, It is reprinted here with the permission of the author and the publisher.
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Chapter Two UNIVERSITIES AND THE NEW PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE: SOME POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT Michael Gibbons Introduction In this discussion paper, it is suggested that the current mode of knowledge production - the way that research is carried out at the leading edge of the most advanced studies (whether in science, social science or the humanities) - is changing dramatically. Further, it is contended that this development - which is being led as much by the internal dynamics of knowledge production as by government policy or by increasing competitiveness - has profound implications for the future shape and social function of all the institutions of science. The disciplinary structure of science - Mode 1 The structures that have gradually been put in place to guide scientific research in universities and in other research institutions are supported by research practices which ensure that results are sound. These research practices set the terms of what counts as a contribution to knowledge, who is allowed to participate in its production, and how accreditation is organised. Together, these practices have generated what we know as the disciplinary structure of science, and this structure in turn has come to play a central role in the management and organisation of research today. Of particular importance for what follows is the fact that the disciplinary structure is specialist. whether in sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities, specialisation has been seen as a secure way to advance knowledge, and its organisational imperatives have everywhere accompanied its implementation. The disciplinary structure is also an organising principal for teaching in universities. It provides a framework for the content of the undergraduate curriculum. The disciplinary structure is the essential link that connects teaching and research, and that underpins the argument that in universities they properly belong together. Of course, research not only adds to the stock of specialist knowledge but transforms it as well. The research enterprise is a dynamic one. Its practices articulate the disciplinary structure and, over time, modify what are regarded as the essential ideas, techniques and methods that students need to be taught. Most of the institutions of science, whether universities or research establishments, are built upon a model of knowledge production that has a disciplinary basis. This structure provides guidelines about what the important problems are, how they should be tackled, who should tackle them, and what should be regarded as a contribution to the field. In brief, the disciplinary structure defines what counts as 'good science'. This form of knowledge production is, for the purposes of this paper, labelled Mode 1. But a new mode of knowledge production may be emerging. It is appearing across the board in the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. It is labelled Mode 2 and comprises a different set of research practices.
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Changing research practices: Mode 1 and Made 2 For the purposes of this paper, Mode 1 is meant to summarise in a single phrase the cognitive and social norms which must be followed in the production, legitimation and diffusion of discipline-based knowledge. For many, Mode 1 is identical with what is meant by science. Its cognitive and social norms determine what the significant problems are, who is allowed to practice science, and what constitutes good science. Forms of practice which adhere to these rules are by definition 'scientific' while those that violate them are not. There is sufficient evidence, however, to indicate that a new, distinct set of cognitive and social practices - Mode 2 - is beginning to emerge. These changes appear right across the research spectrum and can be described in terms of a number of attributes which, when taken together, have sufficient coherence to suggest the emergence of a new mode of knowledge production. The principal differences between Mode 1 and Mode 2 can be specified along a number of dimensions, Thus: In Mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context governed by the (largely academic) interests of a specific community. By contrast, in Mode 2 knowledge is produced in a context of application involving a much broader range of perspectives. Mode 1 is disciplinary while Mode 2 is trans-disciplinary - Mode 2 does not only draw on disciplinary contributions, but can set up new frameworks beyond them. Mode 1 is characterised by relative homogeneity of skills, Mode 2 by their heterogeneity. In organisational terms, Made 1 is hierarchical and, in academic life at least, has tended to preserve its form as new specialties are differentiated. In Mode 2, the preference is for flatter hierarchies and organisational structures which are transient. In comparison with Mode 1, Mode 2 is more socially accountable and reflexive. Mode 1 and Mode 2 each employ a different type of quality control. To be sure, peer review still exists in Mode 2 but it includes a wider, more temporary and heterogeneous set of practitioners, collaborating on a problem defined in a specific and localised context. As such, Mode 2 involves an expanded system of quality control compared with Mode 1. A fuller description of the principal attributes of Mode 2 is given in the Appendix to this book, but it will be clear even from this brief description that they set imperatives for institutional change and pose serious challenges to the conventional organisation of research wherever it is conducted. It is important to grasp that it is not being argued that the new practices are going to eliminate the old, that Mode 1 will eventually succumb to Mode 2. It is far more likely that both will continue to coexist. The terms of that co-existence depend as much on the response of institutions that are currently supporting Mode 1 as an the social diffusion of Mode 2. A socially distributed knowledge production system The reasons why this new mode of knowledge production has emerged at the present time are not hard to find. In the first place, Mode 1 has been eminently successful. About that there can be no argument. But over the years the numbers of graduates grounded in the ethos of research together with some specialist skill have been too large for them all to be absorbed within the disciplinary structure of 35
academic life. Some of them have gone into government laboratories, others into industry, while others have established their own laboratories, think tanks and consultancies. As a consequence, the number of sites where competent research can be carried out has increased. These individuals and the organisations in which they work constitute the intellectual resources for, and social underpinnings of, Mode 2. Further, the development of rapid transportation, as well as information and communication technologies have created a capability which allows these sites to interact. Mode 2 is critically dependent upon the emerging computer and telecommunication technologies and will favour those who can afford them. The interactions among these sites of knowledge have set the stage far an explosion in the number of interconnections and possible configurations of knowledge and skill. The outcome can be described as a socially distributed knowledge production system. In this system, communication increasingly takes place across existing institutional boundaries. The outcome is a web whose nodes are now strung out across the globe and whose connectivity grows daily. Not surprisingly, when traditional scientists begin to participate in this web, they are perceived as weakening disciplinary loyalty and institutional control. However, contexts of application are often the sites of challenging intellectual problems; involvement in Mode 2 allows access to these sites and promises close collaboration with experts from a wide range of backgrounds. For many, this can be a very stimulating work environment. The scientific establishment can be expected to be concerned about this and about how quality control will be assured in a socially distributed knowledge production system, but it is now a fact of life. The challenge for all knowledgeproducing institutions is to learn how to interact with it. The transformation of knowledge production, in the sense described above, is one of the central processes characterising the knowledge economy. In this, knowledge production is less and less a self contained activity. It is neither the science of the universities nor the technology of industry, to use an older classification for illustrative purposes. Knowledge production, not only in its theories and models but in its methods and techniques, has spread from academia into and beyond all those institutions that seek social legitimation through recognisable competence. As a result, science is less the preserve of a special type of institution from which it is expected to spill over or spin-off to the benefit of other sectors. Knowledge production is increasingly a socially distributed process. Moreover, its locus is global, or soon will be. At its base lies the expansion of the numbers of sites which form the sources for a continual combination and recombination of knowledge resources. This analysis of the transformation of knowledge production entails major changes in approach to policy. As has been indicated, many national science policies continue to be dominated by what has been called the linear model of innovation. It is the model which currently dominates the institutional horizon and the one with which we are most familiar. In this model, science functions as the source of technology and the engine of economic growth, and universities and some government research laboratories - being the institutions who carry out most of the basic research - are a crucial resource. National higher education policies, too, reflect the same linear thinking. Universities in most countries are expected to contribute a share of the ideas on which national competitive advantage will rest, and to train the requisite scientific and technical manpower necessary to operate a modern economy. The emergence of Mode 2 puts the validity of the linear model in doubt. By so doing, it calls into question not only a central presupposition of national science policies but that dimension of higher education policy which touches on research and the training of qualified manpower. The universities, in the emerging regime, will still be instruments for the development of science, but they will no longer be the only or even the primary institution on the cognitive landscape. The emergence of a socially 36
distributed knowledge production system brings to the fore- the question of the relationship between the university and other knowledge producers. If knowledge production at the leading edge has the attributes of Mode 2, then universities will need to become more porous institutions; more revolving doors are required which allow academies out and others in. Such a development, if carried out on a significant level, cannot but touch questions of career development and reward structures, and with this challenge the existing structures. Governments and the management of distributed knowledge production What does a policy for distributed knowledge production look like? At the very least, it requires some radical departures from the traditional viewpoint. First, it is necessary to abandon the notion that science and technology are distinct, institutionally-defined activities, since actors do not move in accordance with linear, sequential, and hierarchical models, step by step from research to development to innovation and diffusion. Basic science has become inseparable from technological development and the two are often linked by the innovative use of instrumentation. It has been conventional to view the frontier of science as expanding from the core of its activities. In the current context, however, both core and frontier are spreading. This is evident in such areas as molecular biology, biotechnology, new materials, nanotechnology, liquid crystal and solid state physics, nuclear fusion, informatics and superconductivity. Second, the new policy models are no longer of the 'systems' type popular a decade ago among policy analysts. Systems models imply greater stability in the relationships between actors than is justified given what we already know of distributed knowledge production, More helpful descriptions could be worked out by trying to develop models that incorporate the evolution of patterns of interconnections, the ability to establish on a recurrent basis new modes of exchange, the skills to adapt to the richness of research practice, and to create ever new channels of communication. Third, specialisation takes on entirely new forms, which are not to be understood as a further division of labour inside already constituted disciplines. The new specialties which drive discovery and innovation are problem-oriented and mostly transdisciplinary in character. They break with the common vision of specialisation as an incipient discipline or sub-discipline that is starting on its way to professionalisation and institutionalisation. They exhibit much more mobility. They are tied to the resolution of clusters of problems and will develop in accordance with new problems. Fourthly, the policy process will need to develop a new management style. The traditional approach - some variant on management by objectives like the systems approach - is too inflexible. The management of a distributed knowledge production process needs to be open-ended, and to break away from classical planning perspectives. The management of processes, particularly of the external environment, becomes paramount. That management style can be summarised in two notions: increasing permeability of boundaries and brokering. Policy implications for universities of socially distributed knowledge production In the preceding sections, we have adumbrated a new mode of knowledge production which embodies new research practices, a different intellectual orientation, novel forms of organisation, and different modes of quality control. We have also outlined some features associated with Mode 2 forms of knowledge 37
production, principally the emergence of a socially distributed knowledge production system. Many of the policy implications of the emergence of Mode 2 are directly related to its socially distributed nature. There is an analogy to be explored. The institutional structure that has supported universities and science during most of this century was in large part an outcome of the imperatives of the Cold War. This structure consisted of three, relatively independent institutions for the support of research: The science of the universities was to provide the fountainhead of knowledge and the raw material (discoveries) for a stream of potential new technologies; industrial research and development (R&D) was intended to look after the application of science, transferring the discoveries of basic science into technological innovation; government research establishments were put in place to fill the gap between the public good of university research and private investments in industrial R&D. In this arrangement, government research establishments were put in place to support a range of social objectives that were deemed to be the province of state, rather than either universities or industry, for example, energy, medical health, standards and, of course, defence. As a consequence, three relatively independent research sectors emerged, each with different forms of organisation, research practices and ethos. For example, in organisational terms, governmental research establishments were governed by the same rules of bureaucratic rationality as all other government departments, industry organised its research along lines best suited to promote product development, and universities developed their collegial stricture as the best way to promote basic science. One could not say that there were no lines of communication between these three institutions, but the density was not large and most importantly, the structure worked very well. Funding for this institutional structure was established early on. Government was to provide core funding for the universities largely in terms of faculty salaries and an infrastructure which allowed them to develop teaching and research. Industry, was to fund product development from internal resources, but in fact many industries electronics, for example - benefited from massive government subsidies. Government research establishments carried the burden of building up national research capability in sectors relevant to the Cold War, that is, energy, aerospace and defence, albeit with some assistance from the other two sectors. This 'corporatist' arrangement has now broken down, in part because the imperatives of the Cold war have diminished, but also in part because of the changes in knowledge production that have been outlined above. In relation to the former, the imperatives of the Cold war have been replaced by a more determined effort on the part of government to promote international competitiveness and enhance the quality of life. Scientists collectively have barely begun to grasp the implications of this shift. Initially, it appeared to be a beneficial change and some scientists anticipated a substantial increase in research funding as a consequence of the 'peace dividend'. In this they were sadly disappointed because they failed to grasp that in the context of international competitiveness, or the delivery of a better quality of life, research is a tool to solve complex problems, and that involves drawing upon the many skills that comprise the emerging, more open system of knowledge production. Core funding of institutions The first implication of this more open system of knowledge production lies in a shift in the balance of core funding of research institutions. Broadly speaking, most publicly-funded research institutions are now regarded as service organisations. Their function is to carry out research aimed at meeting particular societal goals, and increasingly they are evaluated against stated objectives. Within this framework of 38
public accountability, universities are different only in that they have to fulfil teaching and training functions in addition to research. As far as research councils are concerned, the fact that research is now intended to support specific social or economic policies has brought about a shift from responsive mode funding to programme funding. For universities this has meant that faculty have had to adapt their research to programme requirements; not infrequently this has entailed raising matching funds from a number of different organisations. While it remains true that public funding for universities still supports faculty and infrastructure, the spread of programme funding is having the effect of drawing faculty into the distributed knowledge production system as participants in a range of contexts of application. At the same time, governments in many countries have begun to create, whether implicitly or explicitly, a separate line of funding for teaching; even here, government funding is expected to be matched by some level of fee income. The overall effect of these changes has been to promote or accentuate the differences between teaching and research by creating different reward systems for each. Because of their cost and complexity, policies which are intended to support international competitiveness and enhance the quality of life are likely to draw governments into becoming more facilitators of research than its primary funders. Government will seek to augment its core funding for institutions through devices such as matching funding, including tuition fees. This will have the effect of encouraging universities to form alliances with the financial resources of the distributed knowledge production system. What is required are not policies which aim to orient research in a means-end relationship with same social objective, but rather policies which promote the generation of a range of contexts of application, that draw on the resources of the socially distributed knowledge production system, and that take advantage of the self-organising nature of Mode 2 research. The emergence of Mode 2 has profound implications for universities and for the relation of the university to wider society. In a distributed knowledge production system, universities are one actor among many, and they will need to develop their human resources in ways that encourage participation in complex problem-solving exercises which for the most part are formulated outside traditional disciplinary lines. Increasing amounts of resources for research will continue to flow into universities along many tributaries but not necessarily along traditional disciplinary lines. By contrast, significant funds will be available for research in the context of application. Universities need to work out both how to participate in Mode 2 research and how to utilise this to allow them to meet their individual institutional objectives. To the extent that universities want to carry on developing the disciplinary structure of science and scholarship, they will need to find ways to do this using resources flowing into particular contexts of application. But in following this policy they may undermine the disciplinary structure itself. Research funding - an hypothesis If it is accepted that in the future government may no longer want (or, because of other priorities, be able) to take primary responsibility for funding research in the universities but rather will play more of a facilitating role, this implies a change in economic rationale for funding university research. It is hypothesised that, in the future, science and research are going to be funded by a range of institutions as part of their overall risk management strategy. According to recent writings in the area of risk management, the quantitative assessment of financial risks are intended to reduce uncertainty by providing information which enables better use to be made of future investments. Research, in this view, is an investment which functions like a 39
financial derivative in that speculative research is treated as the cost of keeping an option open until the decision to go ahead with or cancel a project can be made with greater certainty about the outcome. In the emerging knowledge economy, funding for science, particularly long-term research, is likely to be drawn from the resources of the global financial system which, of course, involves governments. Such investments will be treated by the system as a hedge against uncertainty. In other words, resources will flow to a range of research activities, teams, and institutions which, on balance, investing institutions think will clarify certain knowledge outcomes. When displaced onto this higher level of speculation, research is de-coupled from either government research policies or short-term corporate investment strategies, and investments are made in terms of judgements of research performance. In the global financial system, investors will then be in search of research opportunities for investment, and they will find these in those universities and research institutions which they think have the potential to reduce uncertainties in specific areas of science and technology. The global financial system has both the resources and the flexibility to fund long-term research in this way and it surely will not be long before investors hold 'stock' in a portfolio of research teams based in universities in Cambridge (UK and Massachusetts), Toronto, Sydney and others. Governments, with their established forms of organisation, are in a weak position to invest public funds in this way. They can, of course, set the rules under which derivatives operate, but the existing bureaucratic regime makes it difficult to regard investments as projects. Currently, funding institutions support a balance of programme and non-programme funding with universities or other knowledge-producing organisations. This is already evident in many strategic research partnerships, and the balance will vary with each investment they make. However, speculative funding of research as a form of financial derivative is another matter. Here, the global financial system which coordinates flows of speculative investment from industry, charitable foundations, and wealthy individuals will invest heavily in those knowledge-producing organisations which they judge capable of carrying out first-rate research in areas perceived to be of long-term economic importance, If universities decide that they want to participate, they will need to become visible as excellent research organisations. Few universities, however, can afford to maintain a comprehensive research portfolio at the highest levels. Therefore, they will need to specialise. Governments, of course, are free to join in these arrangements, but as large bureaucracies they are ill-equipped to deal with the uncertainties that research in the context of application demands. Ironically, it is government funding that, under the imperatives of public accountability, seems to be moving in the direction of project or programme funding, while the global financial system takes on the burden of funding long-term research as part of their overall risk management strategies. In this regime perhaps governments are best placed to act as facilitators and brokers rather than as primary fenders of research. Social accountability The self organising capacity of Mode 2 knowledge production in contemporary society is also crucially important. Universities, in particular, have responded to the general shift towards an internalisation of social control and adapted to an 'audit culture' of accountability in which audit becomes a formal 'loop' by which the system observes itself. In a similar way, research which is particularly exposed to public anxiety has espoused safety guidelines and acquiesced in a host of regulations and even restrictions in its eagerness to anticipate and accommodate demands for greater public accountability. From the very start, for example, the examination of the ethical, legal, and social implications of genome research was an integral 40
component of the USA Human Genome Project. Other public programmes, too, have generated a substantial body of scholarship in the areas of privacy and fair use of genetic information, safe and effective integration of genetic technologies and information into health care, and other educational and policy issues. This work is expected to continue. In such ways a reflexive element, an increased awareness, not only influences individuals and informs their behaviour; it also operates on an institutional level. However, there remains a danger that any call for greater 'reflexivity' is reduced to a mere 'after-thought'. For example, proposals to establish an ethics committees may be agreed without serious discussion because it seems to offer an easy 'ethical fix', a reprieve from further public scrutiny and a shifting of responsibility to another agency. Governments should set the frameworks which will be needed to ensure quality, rather than take on the burden of performing assessments themselves. The new mode of knowledge production demands social accountability, but this is not to be met centrally through bureaucratic procedures. Mode 2 knowledge production is self organising and to that extent it ought to bring its own audit systems with it. Society needs to be assured that self-auditing is taking place. Policy regarding research in post-secondary education The simple fact of the matter is that the significance of the shift in social priorities following the Cold War from security issues to the enhancement of international competitiveness and the quality of life has not yet been grasped. The funding of universities is predicated on a model in which universities were expected to provide the basic discoveries on which innovation rests as well as training the next generation of qualified manpower. The current situation is far more complex. Policy objectives cannot be met by core funding of institutions alone. This requires more flexible institutions, more diverse streams of funding, fewer gates and more revolving doors. Governments should act more as brokers than fenders, though some level of public funding may still be necessary. In the new mode of knowledge production, research in many important areas is cutting loose from the disciplinary structure and generating knowledge which, so far at least, does not seem to institutionalise itself in university departments and faculties in the conventional way. At times, it often seem that research centres, institutes and think tanks are multiplying on the periphery of universities, while faculties and departments are becoming the internal locus of teaching provision. what, then, are the implications of Mode 2 for research in universities? leading-edge research Universities are now confronted with the challenge of how to accommodate the emergence of socially distributed knowledge production. The establishment of the research agenda and its funding are increasingly the outcome of a dialogue between researchers and users, regulators, interest groups, and so on; unless that dialogue produces a consensus, no research will be done. Leading-edge research has become a more participative exercise involving many actors and experts who move less according to the dynamics of their original disciplines and more according to problem interest. Important intellectual problems are emerging in a 'context of application' and scientists want to work on them. Pursuing problem interest means that academics may be away from the university, working in teams, with experts from a wide range of intellectual backgrounds, in a variety of organisational settings. They
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will contribute problems solutions that cannot be easily reduced to a recognisable 'disciplinary contribution'. Those individuals who would carry out research in this mode must adopt a different set of research practices and take a different perspective on their careers. However, if they do so, they will be 'out of synch' with the existing reward structure of universities. Changing research practices may be leading to the emergence of two different structures in universities - one which supports research and another which supports teaching, each based upon different reward systems. institutional management: cores and peripheries The university in which the pursuit of Mode 2 research has become a core value - it has 'multiplied up' the number of partnerships and alliances that it is involved in; it shares its staff and other resources with problem-solving teams distributed around the world - needs to be organised differently. The existence of Mode 2 must induce changes in current organisational structures, and this is perhaps nowhere so evident than in the perspective that universities will have to take on their intellectual capital. Heretofore, universities have been seen as 'factories' in which a variety of intellectual capital is employed. Faculty have been specialists, working according to the research practices which we have identified with Mode l. The unit of organisation has been the department, and graduate students have been the apprentices. Following the dictates of Made 1, universities have elaborated the departmental structure and have recruited the best staff they could afford. Universities have often seen themselves as 'owning' this intellectual resource and have used it to establish their reputations visà-vis one another. The arrangement that dominates the university scene at present is one in which permanent faculty work on specialist topics according to the criteria of 'good science' set down by Mode 1, despite the fragmentation that this approach encourages and the financial resources it requires. In Mode 2, as we have seen, different rules operate. In the context of application the research agenda is formed and funds attracted in a different way. Researchers work in teams on problems that are set in a very complex social process and are relatively transient, and they move about according to the dictates of problem interest. Participation in these problem contexts is necessary to keep up with what is going on. As a consequence, some of the best academics are tunnelling out of their institutions to join problem configurations of various kinds. To some this is seen as a weakening of loyalty both to their institutions and to their discipline. If they intend to operate at the leading edge of research, universities need to change their view of intellectual capital. They need to ensure that they are able to participate in the appropriate problem-solving contexts. Equally, so diverse and volatile are these that no university can afford to keep 'in-house' all the human resources they would need to guarantee a presence everywhere. Universities need to learn to exploit all the advantages to be had by sharing resources. Here lies a fundamental challenge of the socially distributed knowledge production system. A model exploiting the economies of shared resources would seem to demand a relatively small core of permanent full-time faculty together with a much larger periphery of other 'experts' that are associated with the university in various ways. To achieve this, universities will need to experiment with a much wider range of employment contracts, and accept the fact that they will not be able to own outright all the human resources that they need. To an extent this puts the universities in a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, the demands on universities in terms of both teaching and research are not only growing but are also diversifying and will continue to do so. On the other hand, the cost of holding in-house all the resources needed to accommodate this expansion is not only 42
too high but not flexible enough to meet changing demand. Vice-chancellors in the future will be distinguished by their ability to utilise their intellectual capital together with intellectual capital held by others in a way that maximises their institutions' goals. They will not presume that every member of staff needs to be a full-time employee. How will these 'others' fare in the university setting? How will their contributions be recognised? Will they be promoted? According to what criteria? How much will they cast? How will they relate to graduate students? Will they have to do any teaching? These are some of the questions that need to be asked, but it seems clear to me that they cannot be answered without changing the nature of universities substantially. The argument is that there are now two co-existing modes of knowledge production Mode 1 and Mode 2. For the future, the key question facing each university has less to do with deciding whether to be a research or a teaching institution than deciding which mode of research - and teaching - to adopt. However, to the extent that universities choose move in the direction of Mode 2, they set themselves the difficult internal problem of keeping research and teaching in some sort of relationship - if, that is, it is still thought worthwhile arguing that a close association of teaching and research ought to be a hallmark of a university. Policy regarding beaching in post-secondary education In the new, more flexible structures that are carrying research, knowledge is codified and transmitted in a different way. Information about the state of the art on a particular question resides less in conventional publications - whether in paper or electronic form - than in the collective memory of the problem-solving teams. However, as we have seen, these teams are transient groupings. They form and dissolve according to the imperative of problem-solving interest and the memory of what has been accomplished moves with the relevant experts. How can knowledge produced in this way be translated into curricula? If it is not codified in books and/or papers, how will it be transmitted? It is doubtful whether this challenge can be adequately met by merely extending modes of delivery to include electronic and other 'distance' forms of learning. Currently, universities are set up on a model of disciplinary specialisation. Training at least to first-degree level in one or two of these disciplines has been regarded as de rigueur for entering the work force. Alas, the structure of problem-solving in the context of application does not follow the lines of disciplinary development. In the context of application, the thrust moves away from narrow specialisation towards problem-solving of varying degrees of difficulty. While it is true that one must have same knowledge and skill before one can solve any problem, the challenge for universities in the future will be to concentrate more on giving students skills for information acquisition and problem-solving than on working out examples based upon established disciplinary paradigms, Universities should reflect deeply on how they could set about training the future cadre of knowledge workers, problem identifiers, problem solvers and problem brokers. These are the skills required in both teaching and research in the emerging knowledge society and if the universities do not move in this direction, other institutions will grow up that will. Government policy should urge the universities to move in the direction of multidisciplinary approaches to learning. This involves testing the limits of what can be delivered using traditional, electronic and distance-learning approaches, and the possibilities of life-long learning. Government should encourage universities (1) to be more sensitive to public demand for learning and (2) to explore more intensely than in the past how student demand can be met by sharing resources with other institutions in the distributed knowledge production system. 43
Some consequences of inaction Governments are in a mode of operation which fits ill with the needs of the knowledge economy. However, things are changing as funding oriented to programmes and projects gradually reduces levels of general funding. This trend will continue as knowledge-using institutions increase the specificity of the problems on which they want research undertaken. At the same time, governments are driven more and more by the imperatives of public accountability. The paradox is that in Mode 2 research accountability has to be internalised, broadly based and to a degree self organised. Governments, therefore, must relax their natural desire for bureaucratic, means-end control, promote variety in relation to university teaching and research and, in both, stimulate the emergence of self-audit systems. Failure to do so will not only freeze current structures but stop the process of institutional permeability which is imperative for a functioning knowledge economy.
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Chapter Three FASHIONS, LOCK-INS AND THE HETEROGENEITY OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION1 Arie Rip Buzz-words and story-lines Change must be in the air, given the popularity of phrases such as Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al.,1994), the second academic revolution (Etzkowitz, 1990:1998), and Triple Helix (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1997). However correct the diagnoses of the state of knowledge production implied in these phrases might be, these phrases are also rhetorical ploys. They posit a dichotomous history, which emphasises that we are entering a new phase, or era, which is very different from what we had before. It is argued that Mode 1 is now obsolete, academics should be entrepreneurs, and interactions between universities, industries and government agencies are to be welcomed. In our modern world, this message is normatively loaded. Actors feel the normative pressure of the changes labelled in this way, and react conservatively, opportunistically, or by embracing the new mode. Analysts of science policy and sociologists of science respond to such rhetoric critically, and emphasise continuity, either in what is happening ('there is no dichotomy'), or in the analysis ('we have identified this before', cf. Weingart, 1997), or both. Again, while they may well be right, such a response is a rhetorical ploy itself, an alternative story-line. In this chapter I want to do three things. First, I try to understand the interest in Mode 2 and other labels as a fashion in science policy, and how it may or may not reflect transformations in science organisation and science policy. Second, I shall propose an alternative story-line myself, one in which changes in science occur all the time, but also lock-ins, linked to stable configurations of scientific establishments and the societal embedding of science. The Gibbons et al. (1994) notion of an academic-disciplinary Mode 1 refers to such a lock-in. There is, however, more to knowledge production than the lock-in. In fact, features of Mode 2 - for example 'discovery in the context of application' - have been the rule rather than the exception, In the period of Mode 1, when the modern research system came into its own, examples abound: chemistry and pharmacy, electronics and solid state science, were progressing as much outside academe as within it, and with lots of triple-helix interactions. When a stable configuration threatens to break down, actors as well as analysts have opportunities to outline a brave new world. The game of fashionable labelling is not an innocent one: there is a danger of a too rapid lock-in, and this is what may happen at present, with an emerging regime of Strategic Science. That this is a danger - this is my third point - derives from my diagnosis which holds that heterogeneity of knowledge production is not a feature unique to Mode 2, but may be found in modes of knowledge production in all ages. Thus, there is an argument to embrace heterogeneity, rather than reduce it. This proposal is particularly important when one considers the situation of non-Western and/or multicultural, newly 'scientising' countries.
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Fashions in science policy and potential lock-ins If Mode 2, with its emphasis on non-disciplinarily and discovery in the context of application, has been there all the time, why the sudden interest? Taking a page out of the (severely underdeveloped) sociology of fashions in science policy, I would argue that the Mode 2 thesis has become so popular (at least with science policy makers) because (i) it names a feature of science which has become more relevant, (ii) it creates an occasion for policy making, and (iii) it feeds the need for mimesis in science policy making. There is an interesting precedent: the emergence of 'Big Science' as a label around 1960 and its rapid rise to become a fashionable concern, as well as a continuing feature of the organisation of science and science policy decision-making - witness the present Big Science Forum consultations organised by the OECD. The recent interest in the 'relevance' of science and the emergence of the category of 'strategic research' in science policy making have their fashionable aspects as well. To bring out the similarities, I will discuss Big Science at some length, and then position the discussion of the relevance of science, and indicate what the changes are, as well as their limitations. Big Science According to Derek Price (1963:2 footnote), the term 'Big Science' was coined in 1961 by Alum Weinberg (then Director of the USA Atomic Energy Agency and member of the President's Science Advisory Council).2 Whoever first thought of the
term, it clearly captured something that was in the air. Derek Price's book, Little Science, Big Science, was bedside reading for the emerging group of science policy functionaries (often scientists) at the time.
Weinberg and Price, each in his own way, used the label of Big Science against a background of difficult funding decisions and hard choices in science, a perceived change in the 'style' of doing Big Science in contrast to that of Little Science, and a general transformation of science to 'Stable Saturation'. When Price (1963:31 footnote 5) argued that '...the state called Big Science actually marks the onset of those new conditions that will break the tradition of centuries [of logistic growth]', he was seeing the decisions about large facilities and projects as only one of the locations where the transformation was recognised and articulated. Thus, Big Science is a label, and a label that continues to be used because it captures something about a transformation of science and a decision-making problem at the same time. Its prominence derived from a diagnosis of change in science about which 'something' had to be done. However, the phenomenon of Big Science, in terms of organisation, size and the need for hard choices, had been present before. It is instructive to detail this point further. The aspect of costs and investments can be put up front: 'Big Science means big machines' (The Economist, June 1990:14). The Task Force on Science Policy (1987), of the Committee on Science and Technology, USA House of Representatives, took this aspect seriously and defined Big Science as '...facilities constructed since 1920 at a cost of approximately $25 million or more in 1984 Dollars or its equivalent.' There are good reasons for such a definition: large amounts of money, and often also high political visibility, require special effort to mobilise the necessary resources, and special attempts at justification of the expense. This kind of Big Science, however, did not appear on the scene only with high-energy physics facilities in the 1950s. The wind tunnels in the 1930s, and the big telescopes 46
that were built since the late 19th century were Big Science projects in terms of physical size, investment, and resource mobilisation requirements, but not (at least not at the beginning) in terms of division of labour and team effort. The big expeditions of the 19th and early 20th centuries easily qualify as Big Science in
terms of investment, team effort, and resource mobilisation, but are not 'big machines'. The Task Force was surprised how much big science occurred before the era of Big Science. What about the organisational aspects? In a study of the development of the space telescope, Smith (1989) defines big science as 'characterised by large multidisciplinary teams, a division of labour, team commitments, agreements and negotiations on common purposes, and hierarchical organisation....' Team research and hierarchical organisation on a grand scale are very visible in the German research laboratories at the end of the 19th century. In fact, this led to concerns about Grossbetrieb3 in science, which was one of the arguments to the establishment of the Nobel Prize, and contributed to its wide appeal. ...the prizes took on symbolic significance because they revived, on the international level, an emphasis on individual achievement that seemed to be receding from the day-to-day experience of national scientific communities. Scientists who deplored the deemphasis of the creative efforts of the individual that they felt was the consequence of Gossbetrieb and feared that they would be reduced to an anonymous mass of research workers could take heart in the way individual achievement was singled out for reward by the Nobel prizes (Crawford, 1984:205).
The trend toward Grossbetrieb had been gathering force in the last decades of the 19th century, and had its predecessors in meteorological and geological
programmes. Responses to such a trend are always ambivalent, and often delayed. It is not uncommon that irreversible changes in the organisation of science (and perhaps the nature of quality in science) have already occurred before practitioners realise it and raise their voices in concern or applause. After a time, a compromise is reached, e.g. by occasionally celebrating individual achievement symbolically, while continuing to press for more resources necessary to outfit the laboratories and support the assistants. In general, there is a continuity of practices, but also changing circumstances and new concerns. It is the latter consideration, the need to come to terms with what is becoming salient, which explains fashionable interest - in Grossbetrieb in science around the turn of the century, in Big Science in the early 1960s, and now in Mode 2 and other labels which attempt to capture a transformation which is becoming salient. Responses to present changes As before, one can see two types of response. One is of science policy makers, science analysts, and enterprising scientists embracing the new fashion (in the ease of scientists, also as a means to legitimate activities). They can do so with some effect because it is not just a fashion; it is also an attempt to name changing practices and contexts, and come to terms with them. Elizabeth Shove (2000) provides some detailed examples. For the Netherlands, we have shown that the earlier champions of relevance of science have in fact become a new elite in the institutions of the national research system, (Van der Meulen & Rip, 1998), and this appears to be a general phenomenon in industrialised countries. The other response to ongoing changes is one of reluctant accommodation, particularly visible with the old elite, the spokespersons for established science. An instructive example is provided by a conference in October 1994, where 'the world
47
science leaders' met in Jerusalem to discuss strategies for the national support of basic research. They were leaders as seen from within the world of science, however, and they evaluated changes in the world 'outside' science as to whether these were threatening to science (as the leaders knew it) or not. They were defensive, but prepared to defend the bastion of science: This attitude is clearly reflected in the following citations taken from the Proceedings of this meeting. '[A]s research resources tighten, science will have to define and fight for its priorities' (Asher et al., 1994:19). And they conceded that an assessment of science, however distasteful, had to be taken up in earnest: '[I]f we do not measure ourselves, somebody else will - "upper management," the government, funding agencies, whoever - and they will probably do an even worse job of it' (Asher et al., 1994:217). They locate their discussion against a backdrop of the 'collapse of public and political confidence [in the importance of science]' (Asher et al., 1994:13). The above reflects the concerns of an establishment which is becoming insecure and is trying to overcome its insecurity by reasserting its position and seeking scapegoats (here, in an assumed lack of confidence with its sponsors and with the public). In the case of science establishments, there is the additional possibility of identifying one's own cause with that of rationality and progress, and creating a mythology of battling against the forces of darkness. It is worth noting this last point, because it helps to understand the age-old concern about a 'flight from reason' and the recent flare-ups and attendant scapegoating between some parts of the natural and social science communities referred to as the Science Wars (Gross & Levitt, 1994; Hilgartner,1997). Regime changes and a possible tuck-in The scientific establishment's views and behaviours are shaped by a regime of science organisation and science policy which was dominant in the 1950s and 1960s, and is still a strong force in the institutions of science. Funding of basic science without ties attached, under the overall legitimisation of Science As The Endless Frontier (after Vannevar Bush's 1945 report to the US President).4 This created a macro-protected space for science, as it were a social contract between science and society (Guston & Kenniston, 1994). Of course, much more was happening than the funding of basic science; but this is a locus to identify key rules of the regime that govern expectations and interactions.
Pressures for relevance of scientific research, and in general, new linkages with, and interference by, the 'outside' world, have opened up the earlier protected space for science. The 1971 Brooks Report (OECD, 1971) is a landmark in the shift toward (civilian) relevance. The other key feature is the more critical attitude toward science, in society as well as with politicians (in the US, this is the continuation of a hallowed Congressional tradition). From the 1980s onwards, one also sees a renewed hope that science and technology will fuel economic growth and help understand and solve environmental problems. The contextual changes, and the uncertain combination of reluctant responses to change and exploitation of new opportunities by (other) scientists, create ambivalence. If these are (even only partially) resolved, a new regime might emerge. In fact, this may well be happening now, and Strategic Science is an appropriate name for the regime-to-be. This is a label proposed by me as an analyst, but also a diagnosis of the secular changes toward relevance and public scrutiny of science, and of the responses, including mimesis and resource mobilisation games. The idea of 'strategic research' is taken up increasingly, and Irvine and Martin's definition, which locates strategic research at the side of basic research (with 'pure or curiosity-orientated research' as the other sub-division) has become authoritative. 48
They define strategic research as: Basic research carried out with the expectation that it will produce a broad base of knowledge likely to farm the background to the solution of recognised current or future practical problems (Irvine & Martin,1984:4).
Scientists have internalised the pressure for relevance, but at the same time have captured it for their own purposes by claiming a division of labour. Typical stories emphasise strategic research as the hero at the core of one or more 'innovation chains', but with a gap in the chain where the switch from open-ended research to implementation would occur. Thus, Strategic Science, as a label for the present situation, covers a basic ambivalence (Rip, 1997). On the one hand, it creates a space for scientists to do their own thing, even if constrained by the credibility pressures deriving from promise-requirement cycles (Van Lente & Rip, 1998). On the other hand, it claims a productive relation between science and society, where society is content to accept promises. The label of Strategic Science can then also cover up spurious claims of relevance, not too different from the claims made under the regime of 'Science The Endless Frontier'. To assess these developments, three points are important. First, the contrast between fundamental (and scientifically excellent) research on the one hand and relevant research on the other hand is not a principled contrast. It has more to do with the institutional division of labour than with the nature of scientific research. The combination of scientifically excellent and relevant research actors again and again, in history and in present-day science. This combination is not present in all disciplines and scientific fields in the same way, but it occurs sufficiently often to justify the claim that a new category like strategic research that embraces both is a realistic option. Second, the re-assertion of purity of science is more dangerous for the long-term development of science, than its exploitation in the quest for relevance, and the possible fragmentation of science-as-we-know-it. This is not to say that policy makers and sponsors of science can do as they wish. Socio-cognitive dynamics leading to quality assurance must be maintained and stimulated, but this cannot be achieved by invoking purity and creating a 'reserve' for science. This challenge is addressed in concrete contexts, but there is also another trend. One can see signs of a 'monstrous alliance' between politicians and science policy makers, and the new elite in science promising to contribute to wealth creation as well as sustainability. A new 'reserve' is created, even if the composition of the establishments changes. In this respect - and this is the third point - it is important (though also ambivalent in terms of effects) that science is under public scrutiny. While public and political scrutiny may sometimes be disconcerting, it is not really a threat (except for physicists and biologists fighting science wars). New accountability relations and interactions with the public may stabilise. At the moment, one sees scientists (but also funding agencies, which have their own credibility cycles to care far, cf, Rip, 1994) exploiting opportunities to mobilise resources through press conferences and other publicising efforts. Such activities increase the variety of linkages between science and society, which appears to be a good thing to counteract a too rapid lockin into a protected regime of Strategic Science. In praise of heterogeneity Why is variety of linkages so important? Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that Mode 2 is characterised by an increasing heterogeneity in the cultivation of science. While they sometimes recognise that Mode 1 will continue (and be important, for example as 49
one way of implementing quality control), in their more triumphant moments Mode 2 has the future to itself, especially when mare and more people listen to their diagnosis. My concern is with the basic richness of knowledge production, and the way various 'modes' impinge on it. Regimes and modes discipline the richness, unavoidably so, but will (hopefully) not completely contain it. Thomas Kuhn (1970) has highlighted the ambivalent role of intellectual discipline and dogma in science, Michael Polanyi (1963) made the same point using an intriguing experience of his own. I suggest that a similar ambivalence occurs at the meso- and macro-levels of science organisation and science policy. This may not always be visible to insiders; in this respect it is useful to try and create some distance, culturally and/or historically.5 Such a possibly disrespectful, but necessarily hard-nosed distance is especially important when one considers capacity-building.
Given the time necessary to build up capacity and competence, one has to ask what kind of science and mode of knowledge production will prevail in 2010, rather than now. My answer: emphasising heterogeneity, rather than reducing it, can be seen as a hedging strategy. Under conditions of uncertainty, it is only prudent to maintain variety. Heterogeneity is valuable in its own right, however. In the example of capacity-building in knowledge production in South Africa, the two lines of thought come together - with the help of a historical detour through the European Renaissance. Embracing variety vs. controlling the world A traditional but certainly strong argument for entertaining heterogeneity derives from the importance of novelty creation and the paradoxical situation that one cannot simply organise for it. The challenge is to maintain the richness of knowledge production, as well as its quality. Knowledge production is disciplined by experimental conditions and by ideals of explanation in a scientific community. Scientific revolutions, to use Thomas Kuhn's (1970) story-line, break through the bounds set by 'normal' science. In addition to this general dialectic of continuity and innovation, there is a secular change in knowledge production in Europe and in the Western world: from embracing variety, in what one could call the 'natural history' approach, to an emphasis an restricted, controllable conditions in a laboratory (Rip, 1982). This typically 'Western' science approach has led to major achievements, but on condition that the complexities of the real world could be reduced to something equivalent to the laboratory conditions of scientific experiments. What we see now is how well-intentioned action based on such knowledge can backfire, when the 'restrictions' under which the knowledge is valid do not apply. The messy world strikes back, not out of vengefulness but because the action did not have the requisite variety. We can think of 'Western' (i.e. experiment-based) knowledge production as one variety, visible from the 16th and 17th centuries
onward, and becoming dominant with the rise of discipline-oriented scientific professions. Another variety, natural history (observational and embracing the complexities rather than disciplining them in experiments), was kept alive in the exploring approaches, and is coming into its own again in earth and environmental sciences. Measuring, mapping and modelling the world, rather than (re)constructing it, is the form that the new natural history appears to take. These '3M' approaches are particularly relevant to decision-making, which introduces special dynamics, up to advocacy science. The practitioners of the new natural history play increasingly important roles in science.
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The melting pot of the Renaissance Reasoning from the premise that the 17th century represented an unprecedented shift in the socio-cognitive history of science, it is important to look more closely into the nature of knowledge production before that time, in the European Renaissance. Whatever else 14th - 16th century Europe was, it was a melting pot. For a birthplace of Western science as we know it, it looked messy, unruly, and without clear boundaries between various knowledges. There were the (medieval) universities, and travelling humanists, artists and engineers. There were also almanac makers, astrologers, mountebanks and ciarlatani performing tricks at the fairs. Princes and wealthy persons were sought as sponsors, the scholarly and craft work to be done was defined in terms of their wishes and aspirations, as well as for the market place. One intriguing variety of knowledge production was through so-called 'professors of secrets'. They collected recipes from different crafts and some of their own experience, and sold them at the fairs or to sponsors. The ambivalence in their position is curiously similar to that of biotechnologists and other scientists in commercially important areas. They had to advertise themselves and their knowledge in order to create some visibility. However, at the same time they had to keep their secrets in order to maintain a competitive advantage over other such 'professors' operating on the same market or for the same sponsors (Eamon, 1985). The so-called scientific revolution of the 17th century replaced unruliness with proper procedure (in scientific academies) and started to create boundaries between mechanical philosophy and the crafts. Whether one sees this as an achievement or as de-humanisation (Toulmin, 1990), the rationalistic mode of knowledge production which eventually emerged has grown out of the fertile soil of the Renaissance. The richness, variety and openness of knowledge production of the time were important. And I would argue that it remained, and remains, important as a backdrop to high science, and as a source of renewal. When Gibbons et al. (1994) identify heterogeneity and trans-disciplinarity as features of present-day knowledge production, they should not be taken up at their own words, that this is a new Mode 2. It is the 'old' backdrop to whatever dominant mode of knowledge production. One might then prefer to exploit the potential of this rich, variegated backdrop further, rather than try and specify a new Mode. Capacity-building for the 21St century Developing and exploiting this potential raises questions of capacity and competence-building. Very visibly so in developing countries, but implicitly as well in developed countries, capacity-building (and maintenance) in science is an issue. Capacity built now will become productive in another five to ten years and subsequently mature (and thus introduce inertia). The common mimetic route is to define the nature of capacity-building in terms of what is now seen as important. This may well be a recipe to become obsolete before one's time. In countries like the Republic of South Africa, this question is particularly pressing. There is a tendency to take top scientific institutions in the US, and sometimes also in Europe and Japan, as the exemplars. But the world (of science, and more generally) may well evolve in such a way that present-day exemplars will be left behind. So developing countries should set their sights on what is important in 2010, rather than what appears to be important now - however difficult this will be politically. Capacity-building for 2010 is difficult politically, because the longer term tends to lose out to the short term. The substantial difficulty relates to the unpredictability of 51
the evolution of knowledge production and research institutions. One way to address this difficulty is to nurture variety, and monitor developments so as to be able to make wise choices - a reflexive version of the European Renaissance. This line of thinking links up with the idea of African Renaissance, without bowing to its ideological thrust. The idea of an African Renaissance has a certain duality to it; On the one hand, it emphasises openness to African inputs which introduce variety into the research system. On the other hand, particular kinds of variety and 'indigenous' ways of knowledge production are given priority. 'Africa' becomes a constraint rather than an opportunity. This tension is visible in otherwise sensible diagnoses of African universities (Adedeji, 1998), and is all the more striking because of the modernist thrust of the argument in such articles. The reference to Renaissance, with its richness, openness and variety, should be taken as more important than its being specifically African. The latter might create a lock-in which will be, in its own way, as limiting as the 17th century scientific revolution. It is a new Renaissance, rather than African Renaissance, which must shape knowledge production in the 21st century.6 In conclusion By creating an alternative (analyst's) storyline (empirically grounded, but still a storyline in terms of its implications for the future), I have created distance to the Mode 2 argument and other dichotomous histories. This distance is important, not because of their being presently fashionable - fashions are there for a reason, and have effects - but because a non-triumphant version of the Mode 2 message must be developed, grounded in history and sociology of science. It is in this way that one can transcend the monolithic histories of maintaining the status quo. My storyline emphasised a three-level dynamic: (i) varying, heterogeneous practices of knowledge production, (ii) meso-level organisations, institutions with their inertia and openings for change, and (iii) possible lock-ins when interactions with environments are (re)structured as a protected space. I then argued for opening up such protected spaces, or at least be reflexive about them and keep their boundaries permeable. There are other attempts to open up a space for science policy articulation linked to diagnoses of ongoing evolution/transformation, without immediately conferring one or another label. But to communicate, one apparently needs labels, whether a numbered Mode or an alternative notion of 'post-normal science' (Ravetz, 1992). My concern about a too rapid lock-in need not be shared by the reader, but the analysis I offer of trends and indications of a lock-in remains important. It depends on the nature of such a lack-in whether one should be concerned or not. Heterogeneity (disturbing and innovative) is important, and that was why I have (diffidently, because as an outsider) criticised the African Renaissance movement for its monolithic character. The melting pot of Renaissance Europe, out of which modern science emerged, appears as important as the academies and societies of the incipient institutionalisation of science in the 17th and 18th centuries. Presentday multiculturalism, if taken seriously, might be the key to the new science of the 21st century.
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Footnotes: 2 3
4
5 6
Weinberg himself mentions that he owes the term to Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer. Grossbetrieb was a common term at the time used to refer to national scientific enterprises such as the German one, dominated by large research institutes, division of labour, and heavy investments in material and equipment. Germany had 'progressed' further on the road to Big Science - cf. the way British and French prize winners found the Nobel prize an important research subsidy, while for the Germans it did not make much difference. The importance of German science at the time made it difficult to discount Grossbetrieb as a deviation from good science. In 1990, the United States National Science Foundation republished the report on the occasion of its 40’h anniversary. This can be seen as a claim of continuity and the relevance of Bush's arguments for the 1990s, but also as an indication of a romantic harking back to the past. In his recent book, Steve Fuller (1997) devotes a very interesting chapter to the view on Western science 'from the outside in', from Islam and from Japan. I have presented these ideas in South Africa; see for example Rip (1998). I have drawn on the text of this publication for the present chapter.
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Chapter Four WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH FOR THE MILLENNIAL CITIZEN?1 Johan Muller Introduction What knowledge is of most worth for the millennial citizen? The question is frequently asked, but the answers are far from unequivocal. What is most striking about them is that they invariably fall into one of two mutually exclusive categories. The first category provides answers to the question in terms of cultural knowledge and skills (the various multiculturalisms and feminisms - for example Arnot, 1997), political knowledge (human rights education, as in the Australian studies curriculum for example Moore et al., 1991) or moral knowledge and skills (the inculcation and practice of autonomy - for example Appiah, 1997). The second category, growing increasingly vociferous, provides an answer in terms of skills and knowledge for economic productivity. The business pages of virtually every daily newspaper extol the virtues of flexibility, innovativeness and adaptability - cognitive skills supposedly for a rapidly changing world of work. Adherents of the first category, in other words, would educate for cultural and political participation, the second for economic participation. Both clearly salient to changes in the global world, the two citizenships are rarely, if ever, discussed together within a common framework. Anti-utilitarianism in educational circles runs deep. It is anchored in the strategies of academic freedom and autonomy that higher education institutions everywhere have deployed since the nineteenth century against undue influence by church, state or economy. As Carr (1993) has argued, the liberal anti-utilitarian consensus prevailed in the United Kingdom with the passing of the 1944 Act, which also had the unfortunate effect of downgrading the status of technical and scientific education for the middle decades of the century. The tide was only turned with Callaghan in the 1970s. All of that has now been brushed aside by the advent of the global economy and the rise of the neo-liberal consensus, which demands not only a new relevance from educational provision, but a new accountability on the part of educators to globalisation's new public good - innovation. What are the skills required to produce economic innovation? What skills are relevant to competitive advantage? These must be the focus of education, is the insistent refrain. The response of educators - with important exceptions, some of whom will be discussed shortly - has been to rehearse anti-utilitarian arguments and to produce negative and pessimistic diagnoses of education's new beholdenness to the market and the economy. We have been warned of the dangers of impending instrumentalisation, commodification and market-isation of knowledge. One thoroughly pessimistic account is produced by Wexler (1990). Wexler begins by reminding us of Marshall's three forms of citizenship - civic, political, and social/economic - and the two conditions upon which these forms depend rationality and solidarity. National solidarity has been fragmented by the new identity social movements, and rationality has been deconstructed by postmodernism. Since these two conditions for citizenship no longer exist, citizenship itself, at least in Marshall's sense as a progressive cluster of rights, must disappear. Taking its place is a new reflexive self regulating identity regime for the new informational class, and a 'splattered' media-regulated identity regime for the remaining four-fifths of society. 54
There is a great deal more to Wexler's dense and enigmatic account than I can do justice to here. The repressive consequences of 'universalised reflexivity' has recently been explored further by Zizek (1999), and the possibilities of subordinate identity construction for the new Fourth World by Castells (1997), amongst others. Wexler (1996) himself has subsequently analysed emergent prefigurative forms of identity re-centering and resacralisation, but the swingeing diagnosis of globalised society as one that systematically dispossesses the bulk of its citizenry remains compelling. Why is it then considered so unseemly to ask, what will the educated graduate do with what school or higher education has made available? Is possible that some of the pessimism is a by-product of the implicit distinction between productive knowledge and critical/reflexive knowledge? Are these knowledges not related or relatable in some way? A small number of sociologists of education have taken another view of the relation of the economy to education. Finegold and Soscice in 1988 re-opened the debate on the left, by charging that education and training in the United Kingdom had fallen increasingly out of step with the needs of an advanced or 'high-skill' economy. The 'old' curriculum - what Young (1999) calls the 'curriculum of the past' - was and largely is a 'low skill' one, by which is meant that a small minority attains high skills, a large majority fairly mediocre ones. A 'unified high skill' educational transformation, it was claimed, could change all that, and lead the economy and its society toward winning nationhood. A number of educators embraced this new vision rather uncritically, and still do. But it soon became apparent that the conceptual resources for re-thinking the changes the global economy heralded were not present in the initial 'high skill' vision. For these, one has to turn to scientific literatures often not familiar to educators: the sociology of economic innovation, for example; the sociology and social studies of science and technology; and interdisciplinary analyses of the changing social organisation of knowledge production. This latter feature - the changing social organisation of knowledge - has proved to be central for re-thinking the changes to society wrought by globalisation, and a narrative is slowly beginning to emerge about the changing social nature, production and dissemination of knowledge. I will examine one influential version of this narrative in greater detail. But first, the outlines of the 'knowledge argument'. The knowledge argument The globalisation literature may differ on many points, but it is unequivocal in this respect: we are entering a new form of society where the social organisation of knowledge and the social organisation of learning are dramatically changing. Whether we are examining the economy, the polity, or the realm of society and culture, knowledge as a form of symbolic capital increasingly becomes the central form of productive capital: in the economy: Knowledge in the form of data, plans, blueprints, patents, programmes and theories becomes immediately productive in the sense that it decreasingly requires labour and machines as intermediaries before it produces value.2 in politics and civil society: Knowledge of all sorts is increasingly sought by groups, communities, as well as individuals as they conduct themselves and pursue their interests in the bewildering complexity of modern civic existence. Recent examples would include contests around the desirability of mineral extraction, land rights claims, abortion, the environment, and so on. 55
in private life: Knowledge becomes the tool with which individuals negotiate the complexities of everyday life, from taxation (tax counsellors) to unfair labour practices (shop stewards and human resource personnel); from relationships (marriage counsellors) and diet (nutritional knowledge) to health and consumption (consumer information agencies). As Melucci (1996:1) evocatively puts it: 'to feed ourselves we consume symbols, to love and reproduce we resort to the advice of experts, to desire and dream we use the language provided by the media'. Successful existence in modern society can be characterised, with Giddens (1990:8892), as depending simultaneously on trust in proliferating expert systems on the one hand, and on a deepening reflexivity at both an individual and an institutional level on the other, as citizens increasingly monitor, question, demand justification and accountability from, and otherwise try to cope with a world of increasing uncertainty and risk (Beck, 1992). Some writers encapsulate this increasing salience and reach of knowledge in modern life with the term knowledge society.3 To say that knowledge becomes more salient in modern society is not to deny that knowledge and its possession has always conferred power in every kind of society known to us. But in no other society has the sheer volume, and even more importantly, the pace of its production and obsolescence, been so dramatic. So it is not merely a question of access to knowledge that becomes important to all citizens in late modern society, but access to and command of the marginal additions to knowledge that becomes key (Stehr, 1994:98). It is at this point that the work of knowledge producers and reconfigurers becomes central to the life of all citizens, in wealth-creating activities or not, in modern society. I have so far made a demand-side case for the increasing salience of knowledge in modern society by showing how knowledge becomes a vital tool for persons and groups who wish to prosper in economic, political and even personal life in the globalising world. But there is a supply-side case to be made as well, The apartheidproduced inequities may have masked but cannot entirely disguise the trend that South Africa has followed along with many, if not all, modern industrial states namely, the increasing massification of higher education and the increased production of competent knowledge producers. We may justifiably conclude that the combination of supply and demand factors, push and pull, has ensured the increasing centrality of knowledge in various dimensions of social life. There are a number of implications that should briefly be mentioned. The first is that the traditional employers of knowledge workers and of knowledge - higher education institutions, statutory research bodies, private and public sector institutions - are quite unable to absorb the volume of qualified graduates pouring onto the labour market. Increasingly, competent postgraduates will find employment in research and development units, in research institutes and centres, in NGOs, or in episodic consultancy and self-employment. These will also now contribute to knowledge production via research-based activities that have been, by and large, the preserve of the higher education institutions and the statutory councils, at least since the professionalisation of the universities in the latter part of the last and the beginning of this century. A second implication is that civic, political and economic life is increasingly organised around the dynamics of knowledge-generating units. These units are increasingly dispersed in time and space, rather than around spatially fixed institutional locales the firm, the shop floor, the university, the laboratory (Castells, 1989) - mainly because of the dramatic advent of information technologies. These allow different functions in disparate places to become co-ordinated to common tasks. The 56
information network becomes the place, increasingly, where knowledge work is pursued by the new 'class' of workers, an elaboration of the white-collar administrative stratum, that Reich (1992) calls the new class of 'symbolic analysts'. As we shall see in a moment, this means that academic work becomes increasingly trans-institutional, and trans-institutionality increasingly becomes one central feature of the knowledge work that graduates of the future will prosecute. This is not some brave new world. Much of the deployment of information technology and the de-localisation of knowledge work is driven primarily by the imperatives of wealth creation rather than by the desire for a better quality of life or an attempt to optimise 'societal learning' (Castells, 1989). Furthermore, in most countries, delocalisation and uncontrolled networking leads to burgeoning fragmentation, which is why the co-ordination and stimulation of a national innovation system is regarded today as such a pressing issue.4 But more importantly, human issues are often left behind in the stampede to celebrate the supposed laboratory virtues of technologycarried knowledge activities. As Stallabrass (1995:10) says: aside from commercial interests, there is also an unholy alliance of postmodern disintegration theorists and wide-eyed New Agers, producing a ludicrous mosaic of the world immersed in a great, shifting sea of data, each person jacking in and finding exactly what they want, in their own personalised order and format.
What this burgeoning of technology-carried knowledge work will do for communities, solidarity and citizenship is not yet clear. There is much talk of 'virtual community' . But real local communities don't go away: they just become more or less tied into the knowledge and power networks; as Castells (1989:349) says, 'people live in places, power rules through flows'. A final general point. It is common cause that there is savage unevenness in South Africa as elsewhere regarding access to and participation in the 'global knowledge structure' (Vorster & Nel, 1995). This is starkly registered in the differential performance patterns of higher education institutions in terms of research productivity as measured by international citation indices (see, for example, ARHS, 1995). It is certain that this will change in time. But because knowledge and power are so closely intertwined, power/knowledge flows under the present global economic situation will remain asymmetrical. This is not so much cause for pessimism as it is a challenge to legal regulation. For while technology lends itself to global flows, it is increasingly recognised that innovation systems, and education systems, are resolutely national phenomena, with national cultural characteristics and distinct national inflections (Green, 1999). This point remains of premier importance. Having considered in rather general terms the increasing salience of knowledge, this chapter now goes on to examine two different ways in which 'new knowledge production' can be grasped and its changing conditions of social production mapped. Two modes of knowledge production There is a global increase, registered in South Africa too, in what might be called 'problem-solving' or 'strategic' as opposed to 'disciplinary' research. Of course, certain kinds of problem-solving, or applied, research have been a feature of research systems ever since the time of the ancient universities. However, with the increased production of graduates and the increased salience of knowledge, coupled with a growing public demand for relevance and accountability, an influential if controversial analysis (Gibbons et al., 1994) has identified a new mode of knowledge production characterised by a form of social organisation that is somewhat different to traditional types of pure or applied research. This can be captured in the following (see Gibbons et al., 1994; Ziman, 1994; Gibbons, 1998): 57
Unlike disciplinary research, where the research problem originates with the problematics of the discipline, the problem for problem-solving research arises in a context of application. This means that knowledge is not produced elsewhere (say in a laboratory) and then applied to a worldly problem: the knowledge is now increasingly produced through addressing the problem directly. Unlike disciplinary research, either pure or applied, problem-solving research is trans-disciplinary. It is pursued by a team of researchers, often located in different departments of an institution, often located in different institutions, sometimes located in different cities or even countries. In other words, context-of application research frequently cuts across discipline boundaries as it searches for solutions. Such research is thus frequently trans-institutional, and many research groups that form research communities are increasingly transinstitutional. Such research is often financed from more than one source, increasingly not only from traditional statutory councils but also from a variety of donor, civic or corporate clients, often in tandem. Such research is organised and regulated by management structures that are often less hierarchical and far more collaborative than the traditional academic research team, and that are designed to take a wider, more hybrid social accountability - to donors, to local communities, to diverse disciplinary communities, to local government, to corporate concerns into account. Unlike disciplinary research with its peer-group-assessed internal criteria of scientific excellence, and unlike conventional applied research with its single corporate client and unproblematic criteria of utility, the quality of such research is increasingly being assessed against hybrid, contextuallyrelevant criteria. Evaluation thus becomes a new field of research and application, as well as a new kind of problem for national research systems, knowledge clients and donor agencies alike. For better or for worse, this 'new' form of research has come to be called 'Mode 2', in contrast to disciplinary research, which is called 'Mode 1'. The Mode 1/Mode 2 distinction has, unsurprisingly, caused something of a stir. The thesis itself has been derided as over-stated, and in any case unoriginal, being little more than a fashionable restatement of the Starnberg group's 'finalisation' hypothesis of the 1970s (Weingart, 1997), which ventured that as sciences matured, their potential for relevant application increased. The characteristic of trans-disciplinarity, its central feature, has been called vague and far from clear (Rip, 1997). And some wonder whether the phenomenon, probably more prevalent in some branches of science like biotechnology than in others, like physics, shouldn't rather more modestly simply be called 'strategic research', a pragmatic label that preserves some of the sense of local autonomy of the scientific endeavour in its 'compromise between serendipity and targeting' (Johnstone, 1990:223). Undeterred, the Gibbons group make large claims for Mode 2, Peter Scott (1995, 1997), a member of the original Gibbons team, summarises some of the most important implications as he sees it of the Mode 2 thesis for higher education in the following way: Universities will lose their monopoly position as the pre-eminent provider of both new knowledge (research) and of skills and certificates as they 58
are increasingly drawn into the marketplace where they must compete with other public and private agencies for customers and their livelihood. Local knowledge will come to occupy an increasingly important place in accredited learning courses, and as a resource in research, as academics and the public alike came to disregard the distinction between academic and local knowledge. 5 The stress will increasingly come to fall on 'transferable skills' and 'generic competences' as the mobility of knowledge workers becomes a pre-requisite for the job.6 Courses will increasingly become modularised to provide the greatest flexibility to busy recurrent customers. Forms of research will proliferate. Scott, it should be clear, sees education in general but higher education in particular increasingly moving from a Mode 1 world to a Mode 2 world (see also Kraak, 1998:910), I will take issue with this interpretation in later sections of the paper. Of course we should immediately admit that the Mode 2 thesis is something of a fairy story. It over-homogenises the evolution of a phenomenon that probably happened much earlier, and it over-dichotomises it, presenting it as two discrete ideal types that probably never exist in their pure form in the real world. Nevertheless, I will claim that the distinction provides a few useful levers for educators grappling with changes in knowledge, in learning, and in curriculum policy and planning, its overgeneralisations notwithstanding (Shin, 1999). The first is that it produces a background rationale for evident changes in knowledge and learning that lifts the issue out of an insular perspective that would account for described and desired changes in terms internal to learning theory, or to policy planning only. The slew of education policy scholarship that directs reproaches at government for 'marketisation' - as if this were some ideological blind spot that could be reversed if only the politicians concerned would see the error of their ways - is not so much a waste of time as a woeful display of ignorance about the wide array of factors at work not only in the global economy but also in the global science system and their massive impact on knowledge and learning. The second advantage is that it suggests an implicit relation between two regimes of knowledge production, as we saw briefly with Scott above, that will have important implications for curricular formats as we will see, It allows us to pose the question quite directly: what is the historical relation between traditional disciplinary formats and the emerging new constellation of interdisciplinary research and teaching programmes? Is Mode 2 really set to replace Mode 1 ? I will first examine the two main contending possibilities here, and will then go on to discuss some of the implications for thinking about knowledge, skills and learning. The replacement thesis presumes that we are moving from one era to another, from elitist and unitary to democratic and plural forms of knowledge production, in short, from Mode 1 to Mode 2. In that Mode 1 is seen as politically and epistemologically conservative, the replacement thesis accrues normative as well as analytical force: Mode 1 was bad and Mode 2 is good. Scott's optimism above is rooted here. The adjunct or supplementary thesis makes the following rather different assumptions: First, that Mode 2 has always, in some though not all forms, been with us for a long time, but that in late modernity it has become much more visible. Secondly, that Mode 1 could not disappear since Mode 2 competence depends upon a prior disciplinary competence. 59
Since it is the adjunct thesis I hope to defend here, some implications of the thesis can be usefully listed: Mode 1 is orthodox, disciplinary knowledge production and learning. This is not going to disappear. It will, however, be affected by the degree and farm of emergence of Mode 2. This will necessarily differ across institutions and across organisations and units within institutions. But whatever else happens, the importance of Mode 1 undergraduate training should never be in question. Where it is, as in the wholesale introduction of interdisciplinary undergraduate programmes at some institutions, for example, then large questions about learning are raised. Since Mode 2 knowledge production depends upon a sound Mode 1 disciplinary base, the general policy priority is clear: as an indispensable first step, strengthen and consolidate Mode 1 undergraduate courses in the institutions. Mode 2 development will then follow. Mode 2 does not have to be created since it is market-pulled: it has to be facilitated, or encouraged to develop, and it has to be regulated. For Gibbons et al. (1894), this is the test of policy success.' If an institution is pushed towards Made 2 by an aggressive funding policy before it has adequate Mode 1 capacity, especially amongst the staff, then it is unlikely that the result can be beneficial. Having said that, there may well be various routes to consolidate Mode 1. For example, one route may be to continue to emphasise Mode 1 learning in postgraduate courses, and thereby to tout for Mode 2 business on the basis of demonstrated Mode 1 excellence. An alternative route may well be to open the institution to Made 2 (market-remunerative) business, like flexible short courses (for example), and with the revenue generated, finance a Mode 1 consolidation operation. This latter approach will depend upon at least some Mode 1 capacity, whether existing in-institution or contracted in from outside. Contrary to belief in some quarters, Mode 2 is not more democratically run nor more democratically accessible than Mode 1. There may be greater access into the knowledge networks via the new information technology, but this does not ensure epistemological access into the highly specialised activities of Mode 2 research teams. A condition for equal participation in Mode 2 research is still going to be competent prior induction into a mode of inquiry, and this for the foreseeable future, is likely to remain something of an elite eventuality. The most effective examples of Mode 2 are research projects which configure disciplinary specialists within an organisational format that produces a knowledge outcome that could not have been produced by any one disciplinary input. The classic example of the Gibbons team is the Human Genome Project. The conditions of success include the form of the partnership, the regulatory environment, the financing arrangement, and the evaluation regime. In other words, the conditions of success of Mode 2 concern the conditions under which previously autonomous or disjunct but highly specialised disciplinary operations can be productively reconfigured. It should not mean that all higher education courses should now become interdisciplinary, or practical, or skills-based. This would be to try to produce the social form of trans-disciplinarity within a single course or a single individual. And this would of course lose the singular contribution of Mode 2, which is productive partnership across previously insulated specialisms. 60
A key question is how academics will respond to the challenge of Mode 2. Even when academics are deeply engaged in Mode 2, the evidence is that they continue to value their standing and participation in professional societies, the values and norms of their academic disciplines, and they continue to extol the virtues of peer review. That is, they continue to value a Mode 1 intellectual climate and will continue to pursue Mode 1 research activity although this will increasingly depend upon the continued flaw of funding to basic research (see Fuller, in Barnett & Fuller, 1998). In the most successful higher education units or departments this should not be surprising, since real status and reward attends their positions. This might not be the case for all academics in all institutions. Nevertheless, with the prospect of escalating postgraduate production, it is likely that competition for academic posts will intensify, and that this will continue to nourish the sense of the value of the deep roots of traditional academic culture. (See Luke, 1998, for a more pessimistic view.) A second possible response is that academics in especially professional faculties, with medium rather than outstanding disciplinary research track records, will embrace the seductive immediacy of Mode 2 as well as its financial accompaniments, which in the present completely unregulated environment can well be considerable: the South African media refer here to the 'consultancy gravy train'. Such Mode 2 involvement can have positive as well as negative spin-offs for the discipline. The positive includes a sense of topicality and practicality that can rejuvenate a tired faculty and attract good students. The negative has to do with the way that academics respond to the time lost in consultancy. They may for convenience simply teach their Mode 2 involvements instead of what the curriculum requires. This would not be good for undergraduate grounding as I have already observed. Or they may employ graduate tutors to do their teaching for them. These tutors may be Mode 1 proficient, or they may not. Either way, the teaching outcomes are likely to be uneven. Probably good faculties/departments will make it their business to balance their teaching and research commitments properly, though this can only be done by hiring support staff that assist with networking, data-basing, software updating, writing research proposals, and so on. The best research departments already employ such highly specialised people. In some departments distinct tensions will develop between teaching and research. When that happens, there is no doubt that the former will suffer. For instance, in departments with high Mode 2 involvement, we will find dramatically diminished teacher-student interaction. This is always cause for concern, but for labour-intensive research supervision it could be disastrous. Remuneration for teaching will probably have to be severed from that for research, no matter how cherished the traditional desire for teaching/research unity may be (see for example, Barnett in Barnett & Fuller, 1998). The new global vogue for distance postgraduate offerings obscures rather than obviates this problem. Learning in Mode 1 and Mode 2 In this section I will first discuss Gibbons' view of the relationship between Mode 1 and Mode 2 and the implications for learning and knowledge, and then briefly show how the matter is dealt with in the learning skills literature and the curriculum policy literature. How does Gibbons himself view the issue of historical accession? Does he favour a replacement or an adjunct view? The case made is equivocal, sometimes contradictory, but I must conclude that he espouses the former but leans toward the latter. When he first addresses the issue, Gibbons seems clear: 'Mode 2 is not supplanting but rather is supplementing Mode 1' and 'Indeed, it is an outgrowth of it' (Gibbons, 1998:33; see also p. 54). Not long after, though, he speculates about 'the 61
extent to which Mode 2 becomes dominant' (Gibbons, 1998:33), and from there it is a short step to advocating the teaching of Mode 2 skills directly, not supplementarily. What are Mode 2 skills? Gibbons, like the management writers, is at times content to speak in general terms about the skills of 'flexibility' and 'reconfiguring' but on its own this does not take us far. When he poses the question as to what abilities transdisciplinarity will require, he arrives at the skills of computer simulation, modelling, and the ability to work with complex models. How should undergraduates learn these? Through problem-based, as distinguished from discipline-based, learning. Using medicine as his example, Gibbons (1998:40) reports that 'some' medical schools teach students 'repertoires of problem-solving' in place of the disciplines, The belief is that by using a problem-based approach students will gradually pick up much (sic) of the knowledge that they would have acquired by going the other way around, i.e. beginning with anatomy and going on to the fundamental sciences and on from there to symptoms.
This clearly leans towards supplantation, not supplementarity; medical schools can hardly mount both kinds of curriculum. Gibbons goes on to muse about the slow diffusion of the new model and of medical reluctance to adopt it. The implication is that it is Mode 1 prejudice and academic conservatism that holds back the medics. There are at least two assumptions here that can be questioned. Perhaps it is the case, or rather perhaps medics believe it to be the case, that solving problems requires a prior grounding in some discipline before students can be expected to display a higher order reconfiguring skill. Perhaps students do need a thorough grounding in anatomy and the basic sciences first. Differently put, perhaps they have to learn the skills of reconfiguring and modelling within the framework of an ordered explanatory system. 'Once they have achieved these precious insights, they are in a position to continue their own education indefinitely' (Gardner, Torff & Hatch, 1996:50), The second assumption is related to the first, namely, that generic skills can be learnt directly as generic skills in a context of application. A recent review of the literature on generic (sometimes called 'polycontextual') skills shows that this is a vain assumption (Breier, 1998), We learn higher order modelling skills in specific discourses first. Genericity consists in generalising the skill to analogous situations. There is no generic learning context, where every student can learn the generic skill. As Linda Darling-Hammond (1997:107), referring to school-based education, remarks: 'Active learning aimed at genuine under-standing begins with disciplines, not with whimsical activities detached from core subject matter concepts...'.
The argument against disciplinarity that accompanies the replacement view thus holds a potential danger: the learning platform of students may be compromised and, at worst, undermined. And if this is the case in the best of systems, how much more so is it not the case in educational systems with shaky foundations such as is found in many developing countries, and in South Africa? The case made by Gibbons for universities in the developing world exhibits this same troubling implication. Gibbons (1998:53) rails against the 'ideology of pure science' (meaning adherence to Mode 1) that seems to hold sway in such institutions. Why not move to Mode 2, is his rhetorical question. But it may well be that it is less blinkered ideology than rational calculation if good Mode 2 indeed depends on a good Mode 1 base. Further on in the chapter, in concert with William Saint of the World Bank, Gibbons castigates the development agencies for funding Mode 1 rather than Mode 2 higher education in developing countries. This time it is not ideology but 'vested interests' that drives the aberration. But is it not at least as likely that the 62
same institutions that do not do Mode 1 research well will be unable to do Mode 2 well, and for the same reason - namely, that they do not have the basic platform, and support structure, to do it with? What these universities need, it seems to me, is precisely the resources and support to do, and teach, Mode 1 properly. That even in developing situations it is the 'better universities' (the ones with Mode 1 competence) that manage to do Mode 2 (Gibbons, 1998:53) underscores the point. To celebrate the virtues of local and lay knowledge in this context, as Scott (1997) does, seems irresponsible to me. In the end, the pervasive unstated assumption in Gibbons' and Scott's advocacy of Mode 2 is that, somewhere and somehow, Mode 1 will continue. This is perhaps a safe bet in the developed countries, but not quite so safe in South Africa and other late developing countries where universities are part of the state-run system. If a funding and incentive regime were to take Gibbons and Scott to heart and incentivise a wholesale move to Mode 2, the meagre Mode 1 base on which it all rests could easily collapse. My argument so far, then, has been that to adopt a radically disjunctive replacement thesis for Mode 2, a celebratory postmodern view, would lead us at best into conundrums and perhaps outright contradictions. Consider Young's (1999:10) distinction between what he calls a 'curriculum of the past' and a 'curriculum of the future'. The former, like Mode 1, is inward-looking, transmission-oriented, disciplinary, and makes a strong distinction between everyday and school knowledge. The latter, like Mode 2, comes with emancipatory promise, is outward-looking, innovative, and problem-oriented. Young immediately goes on to concede that there are features of the past curriculum that may still be valuable for the future: 'Some sense of "learning for its own sake" is essential; always having to search for the uses of knowledge can be a constraint on learning as it can be on research' (Young, 1999:11). Young concludes from this that polarisations that pit models in opposition to one another (from one to another) have weaknesses that a more relational approach might avoid. He goes on to speculate that the optimal relation between academic and vocational learning might be sequential, rather than the unified model that a Mode 2 replacement type view and the more ardent post-Fordists have been recommending. Central to what Taylor and Vinjevold (1999) call the 'radical wing of the progressive consensus', is an aversion to all learning that smacks of rote memorisation, regarded as producing 'surface' learning and understanding only. Active learning and 'deep' understanding is the watchword, and groupwork is de rigueur. Yet in the best new research it is clear that things cannot be divided up so neatly between memorisation and understanding. This is shown starkly by the 'paradox of the Chinese (or Asian) learner' (Biggs, 1991; Marton, Dall'Alba & Lai, 1993). Hong Kong students, it seems, concentrate on memorisation, yet typically do well in assessments designed to tap deep understanding. The false sequentiality of the replacement thesis is here clearly displayed. In other words, procedures of learning and forms of understanding cannot be so easily dichotomised, demonised and written off as the most enthusiastic of the radical progressives would believe. Indeed, as Entwhistle (1998) shows, there are pathologies attached to holistic 'comprehension learning' (namely, 'globetrotting' - the tendency to ignore details and to generalise beyond the data) just as there are to serialist 'operation learning' (namely, 'improvidence' - the tendency to stick to a predetermined order at the expense of seeking connections). Entwhistle concludes that we need a far greater grasp of how learning of various kinds, through rehearsal and elaboration, builds up over time stable nodes of organised, compressed ordering principles that are potentially recallable by memory, but that also act as reconfiguring or recontextualising agents. He calls such nodes 63
'knowledge objects' - '...a knowledge object is much more than a mental image of a diagram. It can pull into awareness currently unfocused knowledge, almost in the way that hypertext in computing uses certain emphasised words to indicate the existence of additional information' (Entwhistle, 1998:96). Conclusion We clearly need far greater insight into the ways and workings of learning and thinking than we have at present available to us. Globalisation has merely sharpened the point. It has also hopefully become apparent through the course of this paper that, useful as distinctions like Mode 1 and Mode 2 are in directing our understanding of the changes visited upon us by globalisation, we will have to be much more careful in relating modes of knowledge organisation to each other than we have been so far. This chapter has tried to sustain the argument that, though we may be able to make useful distinctions between different modes - Mode 1 vs. Mode 2; curriculum of the past vs, curriculum of the future; memorisation vs. understanding - a redemptivist style of crusading that portrays the world as en route from one to the other will simply crudify the picture, and will certainly not aid our understanding of what knowledge and skills our millennial citizen will find most worthwhile. Footnotes: 1 2 3
4
5 6 7
This material was written as a chapter in Falmer Press's forthcoming book, Reclaiming Knowledge. The material is reproduced here with the permission of the author and publisher. 'What is specific to the informational mode of development is that here knowledge intervenes upon knowledge itself to generate higher productivity' (Castells, 1989; see also Stehr, 1994: 102). 'I conceive of a knowledge society as a society in which science and technology have extensively heightened the capacities of society to act upon itself, its institutions and its relations to the natural environment' (Stehr, 1994:105). It is precisely the unintended consequences of such technical hubris that creates the constellation above - and paradoxically, the thrust for new knowledge. 'Universities in many countries are not adequately tied into a system of innovation and innovation training, This does not only apply to sciences and engineering, for innovation is just as much an issue in social sciences, business practices, the law and the arts. Innovation attitudes will also have to extend to social relations' (Carnoy, 1993:90-91; see also Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1995). Some of the implications of this disregard are explored further in chapters four and five of Reclaiming Knowledge, Muller, forthcoming.) See chapter 6 of Reclaiming Knowledge, Muller (forthcoming). 'The secret of adaptability is for at least some academics and administrators within a university to become part of Mode 2, to move inside the research networks and into the changing markets of goods and services existing outside the university. The test of institutions, and of governments, is whether they develop policies and structures which allow, and indeed encourage, this to happen' (Gibbons et al, 1994:152).
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Chapter Five COMPLEMENTING THE MARKETISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION: NEW MODES OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN COMMUNITY-HIGHER EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS George Subotzky Introduction The prospect - real or assumed - of emerging new modes of knowledge production has attracted a great deal of recent scholarly attention. Various accounts - notably those of Gibbons et al. (1994), Rip (1998, 1999) and Etzkowitz (1998) - of significant shifts in knowledge production over the past two decades or so have generated considerable debate about the nature and implications of these changes for higher education. In South Africa, as a result of the restructuring of the higher education system, this debate has taken on a particularly strong policy emphasis (Muller, 1995; Cloete et al., 1997; Kraak, 1997; Orr, 1997; Scott, 1997; Mouton, 1998; Ravjee, 1999). Ravjee (1999:18), in providing a review of the literature on the Gibbons thesis and an account of South African responses to it, reminds us that 'while most people would agree that changes in knowledge production are occurring on a global scale', there are several possible interpretations of these changes, of which Gibbons et al. provide but one, Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that we are currently witnessing the emergence of a new so-called 'Mode 2' pattern of knowledge production, Mode 2 refers to the production and dissemination of knowledge embedded in application in the social or market context. This contrasts with the traditional categories of 'basic' theoretical knowledge production within closed, bounded disciplines and the linear application of this in 'applied' research. Mode 2 knowledge production is discussed more fully below. However, the Gibbons account has enjoyed special prominence and has been taken up in a relatively uncritical fashion in higher education policy discourse in this country. This has its origin in the coincidence of the publication in 1994 of the Gibbons thesis and the conceptual framing of the work of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE). In dealing with the implications of these changes in knowledge production in relation to both the economic and social goals of higher education, this paper focuses primarily on the Gibbons account. More recently, the Gibbons thesis has been approached more critically. Ravjee suggests that responses to Gibbons fall into three broad categories. One set of responses questions the usefulness of the Gibbons thesis in understanding current changes, and posits other explanations (Rip, 1998; Rip & Marais, 1999; Etzokowitz, 1998; see also Rip's contribution to this book). Some critics in this category query whether what Gibbons et al. characterise does indeed constitute a paradigmatic shift in knowledge production (Fuller, 1995; Weingart, 1997; Jansen, 1998), while the Mode 1/Mode 2 categorisation provides a useful heuristic device, claims about a major discontinuity are treated sceptically, not least because they underplay the importance of good-quality Mode 1 disciplinary knowledge in underpinning Mode 2 knowledge production (Rip & Marais, 1999; Muller, 1999). A second set of responses is, according to Ravjee, more cautious in rejecting the Gibbons thesis outright, but seeks more empirical evidence to determine whether 65
such changes are indeed occurring in the ways suggested, especially in the
developing country context (Mouton, 1998; Bawa, 1997; Subotzky et al.,19981). The third set of responses acknowledges that shifts have occurred towards problemsolving, applications-driven knowledge production along the lines suggested by Gibbons et al. and regards the challenge that Mode 2 presents to the dominance of current epistemological, organisational and policy practices related to Mode 1 as necessary and healthy. Ravjee (1999) argues that 'embracing different aspects of the notion of Mode 2 knowledge production (and to different degrees), supporters of this view suggest that Mode 2 knowledge production should be encouraged in South Africa'. The main rationale underlying this view, it may be added, is based on the perceived importance of applications-driven science (whether or not this conforms strictly to Gibbons' version of Mode 2) as a more socially relevant form of knowledge production. In particular, proponents of this view see Mode 2 as the means by which higher education might contribute more effectively towards reconstruction and development and poverty alleviation in the South African developing-country context (Kraak, 1997; Subotzky, 1998a, 1998b). It is primarily within the third set of responses that the argument in this paper is placed. The central concern is about how changing patterns of knowledge production can benefit the public good as well as the private interests to which it is currently predominantly oriented. Higher education is increasingly being challenged to be mare responsive to societal needs. However, both empirically (within ever strengthening higher education-industry partnerships) and, to a very large extent, theoretically (especially in the account by Gibbons et al.), emphasis is overwhelmingly being placed on how higher education contributes to private sector economic development needs in the context of the globalising neo-liberal world order. This orientation towards the market ethos and private interests characterises the 'entrepreneurialisation' or 'marketisation' of higher education (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Tierney, 1997; Dill, 1997) which is marked by intensifying partnerships with high-tech industry, corresponding new organisational forms of knowledge production and an increasingly managerialist mode of institutional governance. This competitive, market-oriented model, along with the new practices of academic capitalism which underlie it, has become the dominant benchmark of institutional innovation (Clark, 1998). It generates considerable tension with collegial values and democratic institutional governance (Currie & Vidovich, 1998; Polster & Newson, 1998). Despite the growing focus on higher education's civic responsibility and its responsiveness to the public good through community development partnerships, these are far less developed in practice or theorised in the literature. As a result, serving private sector market needs tends to dominate over higher education's concerns with community development, social equity and the public good. The intention of this paper is to restore this imbalance by focusing on knowledge production in the community partnership model. The main claim is that community partnership programmes are significant in four respects. First, driven by concerns for social equity and community development, this model constitutes a complementary alternative to the seemingly inevitable and ubiquitous drift towards the marketisation of higher education which serves mainly private corporate interests. The paper contends that this model offers an inter-disciplinary organisational and cognitive domain for operationalising the frequently cited but not often implemented higher educational goal of contributing towards the public good through addressing complex social problems. Second, and of central relevance to this paper, the knowledge produced in the social and community context of application constitutes another form of relevant, socially distributed, problem-solving knowledge production which complements the forms of 66
knowledge production in higher education-industry partnerships that are described by Gibbons and others. Third, knowledge production in the partnership model provides conducive conditions for the integration and mutual enrichment of experiential learning, socially relevant research and enhanced community development-oriented service. This contrasts directly with the growing fragmentation of teaching and research which is characteristic of most higher education-industry partnerships (Clark, 1997b). Fourth, in contrast to growing managerialism in the academy, the partnership model provides a more collaborative and participatory decision-making framework, in which the interests and concerns of all participating partners can be mediated. A few qualifications to the argument must be issued at the outset. As Ravjee's paper (1999) shows, the Gibbons thesis raises a number of complex and inter-linked questions which have been highlighted in recent critical response, As already indicated, these include: (1) whether Mode 2 knowledge production, in the way characterised by Gibbons, represents a full (or even partial) epistemological paradigm shift; (2) linked to this, whether the relevance claimed by Gibbons for Mode 2 knowledge production in meeting contemporary development needs implies continuity or rupture between disciplinary and trans-disciplinary knowledge production; (3) the implications of this - either way - for teaching, for the curriculum and for quality; (4) the relevance of science and research in relation not only to market-related sector economic development needs, but also to the reconstruction and development of the majority poor; (5) changes in the social organisation of knowledge production; and (6) the policy implications of these various issues for higher education. Within this range of issues, my principal focus lies on (4) above, namely the relevance of changing modes of knowledge production to the public good, and secondarily on (5) and (6), that is the organisational features of new knowledge production which might effectively address community development priorities, and policy implications, It should be borne in mind that I am not concerned here with the epistemological deliberation of whether knowledge production in partnerships conforms strictly to the Gibbons thesis or on its various shortcomings as outlined by Ravjee (1999). The chapter assumes that shifts in knowledge production have occurred away from traditional disciplinary boundaries, as broadly described by Rip (1998, and in this book) as 'strategic science' and by Gibbons et al. (1994) as Mode 2 knowledge production. The main focus is on how new knowledge production in higher education contributes not only towards the private good, but also towards the public good and the development needs of the majority poor, thus fulfilling its broader social purpose and offsetting the negative impact of the marketisation of higher education within the rapidly globalising environment. In pursuing this line, it is important to stress that the higher education-community partnership model is proposed as a complementary alternative, and not simply as a dichotomous ideologically-driven opposition to serving private sector market needs. It is acknowledged that, along with higher education's other functions of teaching (both formative and job-oriented), curiosity-driven research and community service, meeting the demands of the market is part of its greater responsiveness to societal needs. Indeed, the notions of the 'market' and 'clients' served by higher education must be broadly construed. Addressing public sector community needs constitutes as much of a market for higher education through the provision (and even selling) of knowledge services, as does the meeting of private sector needs. However, a clear distinction lies between serving private sector needs and interests (and the increasingly managerialist practices and competitive climate which accompany this in 67
the new globalising world order) and serving public sector needs and interests through community development (accompanied by participatory governance and research). Having said this, it is clearly not possible to neatly separate the public and private good. Fostering the latter has obvious benefits for the former, and viceversa. Furthermore, promoting the community partnership model does not imply crudely championing equity over efficiency. The notions of 'entrepreneurship' and 'entrepreneurialism' should therefore be distinguished. The first refers to efficient and innovative financial management measures such as cost reduction and diversified sources of income including the marketing, where appropriate, of academic services to bath private and public clients. This is not necessarily in conflict with social concerns and democratic practices. Indeed, good management and income generation are prerequisites to provide the material means to achieve democratic goals. The second refers to the dominance of private sector market interests, discourse and managerial practices which tend to focus exclusively on high-tech economic development and thereby to marginalise democratic values and practices. Finally, the notion of marketisation or entrepreneurialisation does not refer to an institutional type, but rather to an institutional function. Despite the emergence of what has been dubbed the 'entrepreneurial' or 'market' university as the current benchmark of innovative competitive practice, actual institutional functions are, of course, spread across a spectrum of activities ranging from teaching, 'blue-sky' research, community outreach and knowledge production oriented towards social as well as economic development. Both the private market and community-oriented functions of higher education constitute normative goals of relevance as well as actual practices: the former within the dominant competitive globalisation discourse and the latter within the growing concern for civic responsibility within the academy. This chapter, then, is work in progress which draws from the literature, as well as some pilot interviews conducted in preparation for the larger study mentioned earlier of knowledge production in higher education institutions partnerships in South Africa. Indeed, in addressing the social relevance of science, a key issue is to determine, in Weingart's (1997:592) terms, whether new modes of knowledge production are 'as much notions motivated by ideas of a politically "more correct" science as they are descriptions of [the] actual changes [characterised by Gibbons]'. The case studies in the study provide an ideal opportunity to clarify whether the notion of more relevant knowledge production in South African higher education is merely a normative policy goal or is actually occurring in practice. In this chapter, I first outline the notion of globalisation and identify some of the tensions underlying it in relation to social equity and basic development priorities. I then trace the emerging marketisation of higher education, briefly characterising the Gibbons thesis and highlighting important aspects for the developing country context. Focusing on the South African case, I go on to discuss how the tensions underlying globalisation are replicated both within macroeconomic policy and emerging higher education policy. Drawing from case studies, I then show that the community partnership model and, as part of this, community service learning, provide a complementary alternative to the marketisation of higher education. Globalisation and its ideological underpinnings While in some ways not a new phenomenon, the current process of intensified socioeconomic and cultural linkages characterised as globalisation is distinguished in its contemporary form by its scale, scope and complexity. 68
Globalisation manifests in distinct but related economic, cultural, discursive, symbolic and ideological dimensions, Markers of the process include: the growth in world financial markets (in which the foreign exchange market had by 1992 become 60 times larger than world trade); the dawn of the 'electronic age' and 'information society' and all related information technologies; the downfall of the Soviet Union and the ascendancy of neo-liberal market discourse and practice as a dominant world socio-economic and cultural paradigm. Tehranian (in Currie & Subotzky, 1999) succinctly characterises the phenomenon of globalisation, identifying its negative and positive consequences as follows: Globalisation is a process that has been going on far the past 5000 years, but it has significantly accelerated since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Elements of globalisation include transborder capital, labor, management, news, images, and data flows. The main engines of globalisation are the transnational corporations (TNCs), transnational media organisations (TMCs), intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and alternative government organisations (AGOs). From a humanist perspective, globalisation entails both positive and negative consequences: it is both narrowing and widening the income gaps among and within nations, intensifying and diminishing political domination, and homogenising and pluralising cultural identities.
Considering the impact of globalisation on higher education necessitates identifying the main ideological currents and the growing internal contradictions which underlie it. Globalisation, in its ideological dimension, can be interpreted as the outcome of doctrines aimed at serving the hegemonic interests of world capitalism (Smyth, 1995; Chomsky,1997; Kraak, 1997; Orr, 1997). In accordance with neo-liberal prescriptions, structural adjustment programmes are (more or less coercively) encouraged in order to create conditions conducive to unregulated trade, the free flow of capital, speculative short-term investments, the repatriation of profits and unfettered access to new markets. Neo-liberal monetarist doctrines advocate reducing state control of the economy, restraining state spending including welfare, and the pursuit of export-led policies. Deviation from following these injunctions purportedly leads to reduced competitiveness in the global market, to perceived obstacles to foreign investment and to negative sentiment in this regard. The end of the Cold War was claimed as a distinct ideological victory for the neoliberal world order. Counter to this, critical concern for the effects of globalisation on equity, social and financial stability and the environment is growing (see Mander & Goldsmith, 1996; Martin & Schumann, 1997). Critics argue that, in favouring the minority rich in both the north and south, globalisation has widened the wealth gap. Through the integration of consumer markets, the process of globalisation has created new inequalities, subordinated the interests and rights of peripheral consumers and has threatened environmental conditions, especially in developing countries. The increasing determination of national economic policy by trans-national corporations has diminished national sovereignty (Smyth, 1995). Structural adjustment programmes, in creating conditions which maximise TNC profits and short-term investment returns, are in direct tension with policies aimed at the redistribution of wealth and opportunity and at meeting basic domestic needs in developing countries (Chomsky, 1997). TNCs are, by their very nature, autonomous of national and supra-national regulatory bodies and accountable to no one but their own shareholders. The vast global capital flows which characterise current shortterm speculative investment trends have severely damaged national short- and longterm interests. The recent turmoil in global financial market, which had such 69
deleterious effects on emerging economies including South Africa, bears testimony to the vulnerability of developing countries to the effects of hostile and manipulative short-term currency speculation. The notion of the free market itself can be seen as something of a myth (Chomsky, 1997; Marais, 1998). Rapid and prosperous economic development - for example, until recently in the East Asian emerging economies - occurred precisely where the orthodoxy of neo-liberal market principles was subverted, where the state controlled capital flight and assured greater equity, and where some form of protectionism was retained. Significantly, in response to recent turmoil in world financial markets, mainstream neo-liberal economists (Sachs, 1998; Fischer, 1998) have called for a fundamental review of the global financial system and have proposed some form of regulation of the large capital flows which have been so damaging to emerging economies. Implicit in this call are crucial shifts in attitudes among establishment figures which would have been unthinkable two years ago: that a liberalised and deregulated world economic system does not spell unparalleled global prosperity (Marais, 1998); that this flawed 'free' market mechanism favours the minority rich to the vast detriment of the majority poor; and that growing the global interdependence which is the consequence of globalisation renders everyone vulnerable to market fluctuations resulting from short-term speculation. Similarly, the seemingly sacred orthodoxy of World Bank doctrines has been recently critically reviewed from within by its former chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz, who called for an end to the 'misguided' debt relief policies of the IMF and the World Bank. He has argued that 'policies which underlay the Washington Consensus are neither necessary nor sufficient, either for macro-stability or longer term development' (Stiglitz, as quoted in Hanlon, 1998). The goal, he states, is equitable development 'which ensures that all groups in society enjoy the fruits of development, not just the few at the top. And we seek democratic development'. Stiglitz concedes that 'markets are not automatically better' and that 'the dogma of liberalism has become an end in itself and not a means to a better financial system'. It is important to note that these global developments do not manifest uniformly in different contexts and that, consequently, they are mediated by local and national conditions (Wolpe, 1995). Similarly, Henry et al. (1997:68) argue that 'there is no essential determinacy to the ways in which globalisation processes work, since for various globalisation pressures there are also sites of resistance and counter movements'. Following this, in considering complementary alternatives to globalisation, we must seek not only to identify commonalities across national boundaries, but also ways in which particular local contexts and strategic southsouth alliances between them might provide the opportunity to critically engage with the forces of globalisation and, through the identification of its internal contradictions, resist and mediate its negative impacts. The marketisation of higher education Within these global trends, universities are functioning increasingly as 'entrepreneurial' or 'market' institutions (Dill, 1997; Orr, 1997; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Tierney, 1997; Clark, 1998). The marketisation of higher education is characterised by closer partnerships with outside 'clients' and other knowledge producers, by a greater onus on faculty to access external sources of funding and by a managerialist ethos in institutional governance, leadership and planning. Against the of globalising markets and discourse, institutions are operating increasingly as market-like organisations engaging in 'academic capitalism' (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Institutions are strategically positioning themselves to flourish in the 70
increasingly competitive environment and constrained fiscal conditions created by new state policies regulating higher education. To this end, they are exploring new entrepreneurial activities and implementing internal organisational and managerial arrangements to support this. Universities are appointing 'knowledge workers' or 'entrepreneurial scientists'. These developments are being widely interpreted as a new normative yardstick of institutional innovation (Clark 1997a, 1998; Gibbons, 1998). Market pressures are also shifting epistemological boundaries and other academic practices, and are altering the nature of academic work (Currie & Newson, 1998). Under these prevailing market conditions, knowledge is being reconceptualised so as to value entrepreneurial research, especially that on the leading edge of science and technology and innovation, more highly than non-marketable knowledge (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Conventional norms of academic freedom, critical reflection, peerreview evaluation, rewards and curiosity-driven research are therefore in tension with income-generating market-like activities. Merit, and hence rewards, are increasingly being interpreted in terms of entrepreneurial activities. Recent research suggests that as a result of managerialism, academics feel excluded from decisionmaking and perceive that the academic function of the university has been subordinated to managerial imperatives (Currie & Vidovich, 1998). The devolution of budget responsibility to operating unit level is threatening the concept of the university as a community in which individuals are primarily oriented towards the greater good of the organisation (Comic & Vidovich, 1998). Undergraduate education in public USA research universities has declined as a result of the reduction of block grants, which are being expended more in market-oriented activities. Consequently, teaching and research are increasingly detached (Clark, 1997b). The impact of globalisation on higher education is thus characterised by three levels of marketisation: (a) epistemological and organisational changes towards applications-driven forms of knowledge production and dissemination; (b) through this, the serving of societal needs, with the dominant emphasis on meeting the interests and needs of the private sector market; and (c) changes in institutional management style towards managerialism and market-like income generation. As the first set of changes relates to the shift towards what Gibbons et al. have described as Mode 2 knowledge production through (mainly business-university) research partnerships, I now turn to look at the Gibbons thesis in more detail and to track some implications of this for higher education, particularly in the developing country context. This provides a useful paint of departure for the purposes of this paper in identifying the alternative to the entrepreneurialisation of the university. As the Gibbons thesis is widely known, I focus only on those elements which are relevant to my main claim, that knowledge production in community partnership schemes constitutes (potentially at least) applications-driven, socially-relevant research which complements private sector market-oriented knowledge production. In so doing, three problematic aspects of the Gibbons thesis are identified: fuzziness about the continuity between Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge; the ongoing emphasis on high-tech economic (and hence private sector market) forms of Mode 2 knowledge production, despite addressing developing country contexts; the absence of a political and power discourse in characterising Mode 2 knowledge production. The Gibbons thesis: new forms of knowledge production and its impact on higher education Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that we are witnessing a fundamental shift from what they term 'Mode 1' to 'Mode 2' forms of knowledge production. In his most recent exposition and elaboration of this thesis, Gibbons (1998) identifies the relevance of 71
higher education in the 21st century in terms of the imperative to adapt and respond organisationally to these new modes of knowledge production. Gibbons defines the contemporary relevance of higher education explicitly in terms of these changes in knowledge production. He argues that universities are currently largely organised in accordance with the structures of disciplinary science, referred to as Mode 1. Gibbons characterises the emerging new mode of knowledge production as Mode 2, that is, knowledge which is produced in the context of application (Gibbons et al., 1994; Gibbons, 1998). The main attributes of Mode 2 knowledge production are its trans-disciplinarity, its heterogeneity and organisational diversity, the heightened social accountability and reflexivity which accompanies it, and new forms of quality control which emanate from it. Gibbons argues that during the past two decades, a 'new economically-oriented paradigm of the function of higher education in society has gradually emerged' (Gibbons, 1998:1). The high-minded Humboldtian pursuit of knowledge for its own sake has been supplanted by the view that universities 'are meant to serve society, primarily by supporting the economy and promoting the quality of life of its citizens' (Gibbons, 1998:1). In this perspective, the critical function of universities has been replaced by a more pragmatic role of providing qualified personpower and the production of relevant knowledge. The organisational development of the modern university arose from the process of disciplinary specialisation and sub-specialisation of knowledge. Increasingly, as a result of Mode 2 knowledge production, faculties and departments have become organisational and administrative units rather than intellectual categories. The conduct of research in the context of application as well as its distributed nature means that contemporary science cannot remain within the confines of university departments or academic centres. This is prompting the emergence of a host of new institutional arrangements, linking government, industry, universities and private consultancy groups in different ways. The real academic unit has become the programme, research unit or - in its more mobile and quintessentially Mode 2 form the rapidly assembled and transient research team. Significantly for my purposes, Gibbons highlights the importance of partnerships, interaction and collaboration in knowledge production. Given the nature of Mode 2 knowledge production, universities which 'intend to practice research at the forefront of many areas are going to have to organise themselves ... to become more open, porous institutions, more aggressive in seeking partnerships and alliances, than they are currently' (Gibbons, 1998:10). The best universities are those which display - as part of their core values and missions - adaptive responses, partnerships, interaction with other knowledge producers, and lifelong learning. They will have to adjust from being adept producers of (mainly disciplinary) knowledge to being creative reconfigurers of knowledge in solving increasingly complex problems. The new 'dynamics of relevance' for higher education and its contemporary cognitive landscape are being moulded by two processes. These are the massification of higher education and the impact of globalisation and international competitiveness. Gibbons drives home the point that universities are 'now only one knowledge producing agency amongst many in an economic order where knowledge and skill are the principal commodities being traded' (Gibbons, 1998:30). In order to remain relevant, they will have to adapt themselves to play a collaborative role within a larger, more complex environment. The massification of higher education and the diffusion of research-trained graduates have increased the number of potential research sites outside the academy. Coupled with the growing needs of the knowledge society, this leads to the core of Gibbons' thesis that 'the parallel expansion in the numbers of potential knowledge producers on the supply side and 72
the expansion of the requirement of specialist knowledge on the demand side are creating the conditions for the emergence of a new mode of knowledge production' (Gibbons, 1998:33). In this context, universities are likely to incorporate within their stated missions the commitment to relevant knowledge production and will increasingly reflect this in their organisational structure and resource allocations. It is my central contention that, to fulfil the responsibility with which Gibbons (and, as we shall see, South Africa's recently formulated higher education policy goals) charges higher education namely, that it must serve society through fostering economic development and promoting the quality of life of all its citizens - this commitment to relevant knowledge production can and should be directed, not only towards collaborative partnerships with business in the interests of mainly private sector economic development, but also towards partnerships aimed at community development. Gibbons highlights the tension between the tradition of university-based research (and we may add, research oriented to community development) and the threatening encroachment of industry and the mentality and values of profit-making (Gibbons, 1998:13). The process of contributing specialist knowledge as part of the innovation chain draws universities deeply into the competitive arena. With the intensification of international competition, Gibbons argues that 'the extraction of economic benefit from university research ... is now a matter of concern (Gibbons, 1998:30). This transformation is far-reaching because it draws the universities 'into the heart of the commercial process'. Understanding and solving complex problems through a Mode 2-type curriculum Gibbons argues that, in the context of massification and increasingly complex social problems, a diversified higher educational landscape is emerging in which institutions address a multi-dimensional framework of knowledge missions. These are: the conduct of basic, applied, clinical and collaborative research and expert consultation; the award of undergraduate degrees; professional training; the contribution to lifelong learning; interaction with civil society; and the offering of a number of direct services (Walshock, quoted in Gibbons, 1998:38). In the light of this, Gibbons contends that curricula must focus on problem-solving skills, interpersonal communication, and learning to learn. This is especially so given the shift of scientists towards the understanding of complex natural and social systems, and the resultant emergence of trans-disciplinarily. To understand such problems requires a problem-centred trans-disciplinary approach (Gibbons, 1998:39). Accordingly, 'the spread of Mode 2 trans-disciplinarily into the curriculum requires a shift from discipline-based to problem-based learning' (Gibbons, 1998:40). It involves more than the hybridisation of the disciplinary structure. Genuinely trans-disciplinary curricula involve teaching programmes which develop the necessary core skills to apply knowledge in creative ways. They are oriented to understanding complex systems and are based on participation in problem-solving teams. As we shall see, this is mirrored exactly in the community service learning context in which problem-based learning is pursued along with community development through partnerships as a core value. However, it is precisely against this rather uncritical and discontinuous uptake of a problem-based trans-disciplinary curriculum at the expense of a sound Mode 1 disciplinary foundation that Minter (1999) cautions us, especially in the developing country context. This will be elaborated below. As mentioned, Mode 2 tends to divide undergraduate teaching and research. To counter this, Gibbons argues cogently that in order to prepare a corps of knowledge 73
workers with developed required skills and insights into complex systems, programmes would be increasingly infused with inquiry-based learning. The benefits of this, as Clark (1997a) notes, are enhanced learning and better preparation for the complexities of modern life. The developing country context: partnerships or perish2 The trans-disciplinary approach to solving complex problems is especially relevant in the developing country context. For Gibbons, Mode 2 presents opportunities as well as threats for universities in the developing world. The key question raised by Gibbons - and a significant one for my purposes - is whether a culture of Mode 2 type research serves the needs of developing societies more effectively than a culture of Mode 1 type disciplinary science. In his view, Mode 1 knowledge generally does not provide application in the context, except in the long term through applied knowledge, In the developing world, Gibbons suggests, a certain impatience towards disciplinary science is emerging. The understanding of complex problems is precisely what is needed in the developing world. As a result, trans-disciplinary groups are being formed to tackle problems, especially in health and medicine, environmental studies and risk analysis. Gibbons (1998:54) highlights the importance of Mode 2 knowledge in the developing country context as follows: To meet both national and community needs a different organisation of knowledge production than Mode 1 is required. The elements of that organisation lie not necessarily in the wholesale abandonment of Mode 1, but rather in the developing of linkages between Mode 1 and Mode 2.... The key elements [are]: a focus on understanding complex systems, an intellectual orientation towards problem-solving, the use of computer simulation and modeling techniques. ... All countries possess particular complexes of natural resources, local ecologies, and distinct economic and political systems. These could become the objective of exhaustive research, the more so if local teaching programmes were oriented to providing problem-salving skills. As soon as one begins to focus on understanding complex systems, the need for different types of expertise becomes obvious - and the need for partnerships and alliances becomes imperative.
The dilemma faced by universities of the developing world, Gibbons argues, is that they are locked into a disciplinary-based mode of knowledge production, they are capital dependent, and oriented towards problems which are relatively context free (Gibbons, 1998:53). Nonetheless, he refers to several examples of models from developing countries, arguing that these are evident in many different areas of research. These examples share similarities with the cases of community development partnerships which are discussed below. The key issue is that 'these initial experiments are forerunners of future models, and that many more of them will be needed to cope with the complexity of local environments, and the needs of local communities' (Gibbons, 1998:54). The initial findings of my research concur with this. As we shall see, this is evidenced in the growing number of applicationsdriven community-oriented programmes in South Africa's historically black universities and increasingly in historically white universities as well. Many community service programmes - especially at previously conservative and racially divided Afrikaans institutions which are strategically positioning themselves within the new increasingly accountable and competitive higher education planning and policy framework - signal a growing emphasis on orienting teaching and research towards meeting locally-contextualised problems. These were initially the preserve of historically black universities which, like the historically black universities and colleges in the USA, tended to express a closer historical commitment to uplifting disadvantaged communities. 74
Gibbons argues that the challenge and great opportunity for universities of the developing world is to ... use their Mode 1 resources to extend their capabilities by means of programmes of collaboration in which the sharing of resources in central. This effort at extension will draw these universities into the distributed knowledge production system, focus their attention on the needs of their communities, direct their efforts to the understanding of local and national complex systems, and, in the end, create a new culture of teaching and research - with relevance built in! If science will not help to solve the problems that the developing countries face, then maybe research should be given a chance (Gibbons, 1998:55, emphasis added).
It is for these reasons that South African analysts recognised the potential of a Mode 2 orientation to improve the effectiveness of programmes directed towards national development goals (Kraak & Wooers, 1995; Kraak, 1997; Subotzky, 1998a, 1998b), However, as I have argued elsewhere (Subotzky, 1997), the ability of historically disadvantaged institutions in South Africa to meet these demands implies a fundamental improvement in institutional teaching and research quality, capacity and infrastructure. Despite these indications, Gibbons' account remains confusingly ambiguous about the relation between Mode 1 and Mode 2. In certain formulations, as in the first quotation above, he contends clearly that Mode 2 does not supplant Mode 1, but rather co-exists with it. However, the general drift of his argument assumes the increasing future dominance of Mode 2, which - in the absence of any sustained qualifications to this - suggests that Mode 2 will eventually supplant Mode 1 because the latter is not developmentally relevant. Gibbons thus assumes a 'replacement' rather than a more sensible 'adjunct' theory (Muller, 1999). According to Muller, this approach is problematic as it downplays the complexity of the relationship between disciplinary and applications-driven knowledge both in the acquisition of knowledge and in problem-solving. For Muller, Mode 1 provides the necessary disciplinary substructure upon which quality inter- and trans-disciplinary knowledge acquisition and production can occur. Consequently, in Muller's view, the optimism attached by Gibbons to the problem-solving curriculum and related outcomes-based core competencies in meeting developing country needs is unwarranted and even potentially damaging if detached from the required sound Mode 1 foundation. In the light of these concerns, the key challenge for the developing country university is how to build simultaneously the required strengths in both Mode 1 disciplinary knowledge and Mode 2 type inter-disciplinary core skills in order to serve the needs of developing societies. Addressing this issue in relation to both the curriculum and knowledge production requirements is, in turn, premised on a nuanced understanding of precisely what mix of specific disciplinary knowledge and generic problem-solving skills is required in the context of application of graduates and researchers in developing countries. The emphasis on mix is important to avoid a crude polarisation. Likewise, acknowledging the necessity of good quality Mode 1 does not imply supporting the detached ivory tower pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Relevance is an important consideration. The unavoidable point is, however, that the value of problem-oriented curricula in terms of its 'built-in relevance' can only be realised if (reasonable) quality is assured. By his own admission, the Mode 1/Mode 2 distinction is regarded by Gibbons as a heuristic device to spur debate on the changing nature of knowledge production, Despite this, Gibbons' account does not satisfactorily highlight the need for both relevance and quality . Despite highlighting the possible contribution of higher education institutions in developing countries to community development and the public good through 75
Mode 2 knowledge production, the Gibbons thesis as a whole remains largely focused on serving economic, and hence private sector market needs, rather than basic social needs (see also Neave, 1997). Clearly, Gibbons almost exclusively interprets the meeting of societal needs and enhancing the quality of life in terms of the contribution of higher education to economic development. However, he does claim that Mode 2 knowledge production generates broader benefits beyond the economic. Although he exemplifies Mode 2 only in relation to knowledge production, it has 'coevolutionary effects in other areas, for example in economics, the prevailing division of labour, and the local sense of community' (Gibbons, 1998:34). Nonetheless, in explaining the growing social accountability and reflexivity of higher education, Gibbons rather optimistically overstates the case. He argues that, 'contrary to what one might expect, working in the context of application increases the sensitivity of scientists and technologists to the broader implications of what they are doing' (Gibbons, 1998:9). This is because 'the issues which forward the development of Mode 2 research cannot be specified in scientific and technical terms alone'. The implementation of solutions are 'bound to touch the values and preferences of different individuals and groups which have been traditionally seen as located outside of the scientific and technological system' and who now 'become active agents in the definition and solution of problems as well as in the evaluation of performance'. Likewise, Gibbons argues that new forms of quality control of Mode 2 research extend beyond the closed confines of conventional peer review and incorporate a more diverse range of intellectual, social, political and economic interests. It may be true that trans-disciplinary teams which include social scientists and other stakeholders may have these consequences. However, this remains a process highly contingent on the power relations implicit in the process. In contending that 'social accountability permeates the whole knowledge production process' (Gibbons, 1998:9), Gibbons ignores the considerable control which corporate interests bring to bear on the agenda, shape and findings of research and on the composition of the teams. Indeed, conspicuously omitted from his overall analysis, dominated as it is by the techno-economic terrain, are the political dynamics of research (Kraak, 1997). Likewise, as Muffler (1995:10) reflects, 'What this burgeoning of technology-carried knowledge work will do for communities, solidarity and citizenship is not yet clear. There is much talk of "virtual community". But real local communities don't go away: they just become less tied into the knowledge and power networks.' By contrast, I argue below that genuine community partnerships, where the participants' interests are recognised and validated, provide a much more viable model for the social accountability of research. The purpose of this rather extended exposition of the Gibbons' thesis was to provide a backdrop against which the nature and significance of community partnership programmes and community service learning can be sketched. In subsequent sections of the chapter, I trace the ways in which these programmes parallel features of Mode 2 knowledge production and then argue that these constitute important models for the development of complementary alternatives to the prevailing emphasis on serving societal needs exclusively through globally-oriented economic development. First, however, in the next section I consider the South African case; its political economy, the tensions inherent in this, and how this is replicated in its higher education policy. This is explored as a background to examining the policy import of the community-higher education partnership model in the South African context.
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The political economy of South Africa Given its particularly politicised history, South Africa represents a vivid and interesting case of the challenge faced by all countries, to respond to global pressures and simultaneously to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity. It thus provides an interesting comparative case in which to observe these political economic tensions as a backdrop to understanding their impact on higher education policy. South Africa has just completed the first six years of its post-apartheid history. Since the 1990 unbanning of political opponents to apartheid and the release of Mandela and others, and the first democratic election in 1994, a progressive new constitution and public policy framework has emerged to redress the ravaging inequalities of apartheid. Simultaneously, South Africa has gradually reinserted itself into the international context, grappling with the challenges of positioning itself competitively as an emerging economy in the rapidly changing global scenario. As a result of its deeply divided social order, South Africa comprises a dual but interdependent social order, shaped by apartheid and largely determined along racial lines. This dual social structure consists of a relatively advanced, globally interconnected political economy dominated by the mainly white rich minority, and a relatively underdeveloped socio-economic stratum comprising the mainly black poor majority. The former has depended on the latter in many critical ways for its existence and reproduction (Wolpe, 1995). Characteristic of this dual society is the extreme disparity in advantage, power and privilege between the rich minority and the poor majority. The tension in South Africa's macro-economic policy manifest in its two-fold development imperative - namely of simultaneously achieving global competitiveness and of addressing the basic needs of its impoverished majority through the redistribution of wealth and opportunity - emanates directly from its stark dual social structure. The broader tensions underlying globalisation are replicated vividly in South Africa's emerging macro-economic policy and, as we shall see shortly, in its higher education policy goals. Given the socialist leaning of the ruling African National Congress during the years of its anti-apartheid resistance, the unanticipated moderateness of its current macroeconomic policy may appear somewhat anomalous. This bears testimony to the persuasive power of the neo-liberal global consensus. Following the reforms of the apartheid regime during the late 1980s, the new government has initiated a voluntary structural adjustment programme designed to create a conducive climate for foreign investment, to win World Bank and IMF favour and to assuage the concerns of local business. It has therefore positioned itself squarely within the prevailing neo-liberal paradigm of unfettered capital flows and monetarist fiscal restraint, while retaining a broad moral and political commitment reconstructive development and to the redistribution of wealth and opportunity. This duality manifests in two strongly contested and contradictory policies. The first is the redistributive development path embodied in the government's 1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) - an integrated programme aimed simultaneously at meeting the basic needs of the people, thereby kick-starting growth through redistribution, and sustaining this growth through an export-led high-tech competitive engagement in the global arena. The second path prioritises globally oriented development, and is premised on structural adjustments and redistribution through growth. It is linked to the government's 1996 Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy which aims at job creation through a projected growth rate based on increasing foreign investment. It is consistent 77
with World Bank macro-economic principles of budget deficit reduction and restricted social spending. To date, GEAR targets have not been reached, apart from reduction of the budget deficit. While there has been constant rhetorical commitment to the RDP goals of meeting basic needs, not only have there been severe delivery problems and organisational haphazardness in grounding the RDP, but deep contradictions have also emerged in the formulation and implementation of macro-economic and fiscal policy measures. For example, while offering relief to the low income groups, the proportional tax burden has increasingly shifted from companies to individuals in order to create conducive conditions for investment and growth. These developments represent significant ideological shifts in government policy from its previously more unconditional commitments to the redistribution of wealth and have severely strained its alliance with trade unions and the South African Communist Party. In particular, recent sustained opposition by its partners to the GEAR strategy has been premised on the argument that it fundamentally favours the global development path at the expense of RDP concerns and the interests of the poor. Even the Church has opposed GEAR on the grounds that it does little to assist the poor. The ANC has subsequently agreed to modify GEAR targets, but remains committed to its framework. Clearly, South Africa must follow a 'Third Way' complementary development path which accommodates global and redistributive concerns. Achieving this implies demonstrating considerable political will in critically challenging the neo-liberal orthodoxy, in identifying its internal contradictions in solidarity with other southern developing countries, and in justifying a strong role for the state in regulating transnational capital flows and in fulfilling its redistributive agenda. The state must actively drive basic development, to complement the private sector's role in driving growth. Higher education policy in South Africa These wider tensions and challenges are embedded in emerging higher education policy in South Africa as the system has undergone fundamental restructuring. The 1996 report of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) provided the framework for the reconstruction of the higher education system and laid the foundation for the government White Paper on higher education (DoE, 1997) and the subsequent Higher Education Act (1997). This framework borrows heavily from international models of financing, quality assurance and national qualifications, mainly from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The new policy framework establishes the foundation for a unified, equitable, well-planned, programme-based system. It aims to overcome the prevailing mismatch between higher education output and the demands of economic and social development, to ensure quality, to reduce wasteful duplication through planning, and to redress the severe race, gender, geographic and institutional inequalities which are the legacy of apartheid. Tensions among higher education stakeholders were high during the formulation of the NCHE report and the subsequent Green, Draft and Final White Papers on higher education transformation (Subotzky, 1998a). Mirroring the broader macro-economic tensions outlined above, the main contestations were around the emphasis on the role of higher education in contributing towards global competitiveness as opposed to serving the basic needs of the poor majority. Significantly, the final White Paper makes numerous and balanced references to both global and redistributive development priorities. According to the White Paper (DoE, 1997:7), higher education in the context of contemporary South Africa must 'contribute to and support the process of societal transformation outlined by the RDP, with its compelling vision of people-driven development leading to the building of a better 78
quality of life for all'. It must also 'provide the labour market, in a knowledge-driven and knowledge-dependent society, with the ever-changing high-level competencies and expertise necessary for the growth and prosperity of a modern economy' (DoE, 1997:7). However, without exploring the basis upon which reconstructive community-oriented development can be programmatically and institutionally operationalised, these goals remain unresolved, contradictory challenges. While numerous accounts in the literature characterise the new organisational and epistemological features of the 'market' university, policy debates are relatively silent on the corresponding features of the reconstructive development function of higher education. A recent review of trends in the literature on Higher Education and the Public Good (ERIC, 1996:1) suggests that 'economic development is most represented in the literature, with political and social development significantly less discussed'. New ways, it is suggested, 'for higher education to support these goals regionally or locally - for example, through service learning or action research - should be studied'. Other areas of research which should receive focus include the impact of higher education on specific communities, the role of higher education in developing citizenship and working for global good in an increasingly challenging social context, and collaboration, which 'is seen as important in strengthening the role of higher education in society and higher education's meeting needs more closely' (ERIC, 1996:3). The model of community partnerships, discussed below, focuses directly on these concerns. New concerns about the contribution of higher education to the public good Renewed interest in the contribution of higher education to the public good and community development is part of a growing world-wide concern for enhancing the civic responsibility and broader social purpose of higher education in the light of globalisation practices. In response to evidence of the widening disparity between conventional academic practices and societal needs, the role of universities in fostering the public good has come under rigorous scrutiny (see for example Fairweather, 1996, and Tierney, 1997). This concern has been accompanied by a new emphasis on the policy dimension of research, on establishing collaborative linkages with government and the private sector, and on the reappraisal of the service and outreach function of higher education (Terenzini, 1996; Keller, 1998). In similar vein, Braskamp and Wergin (1997:62) argue that, given the degree of social fragmentation in the environment, 'higher education today has an opportunity unique in its history to contribute to our society' , Despite the numerous roles which higher education has played in the life and progress of society, the university campus is, in Boyer's words, increasingly 'viewed as a place where students get credentialed and faculty get tenured, while the overall work of the academy does not seem particularly relevant to the nation's most pressing civic, social, economic and moral problems' (Boyer, 1996, as quoted in Braskamp & Wergin, 1997;62-64). There is increasing pressure in the USA to bridge the gap between higher education and society, and 'to become active partners in addressing and solving our social ills and be more competitive internationally'. Higher education institutions now need to 'reorient themselves as active partners with parents, teachers, principals, community advocates, business leaders, community agencies, and general citizenry' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:64). Higher education, in view of these authors, will enhance its usefulness to society by 'becoming a forum for critical community dialogues, by advancing practice-based knowledge and policies as well as upholding the creation of theory-based knowledge, and by utilising faculty expertise in new ways - in short, by forming new social relationships' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:64). 79
Community service partnerships and community service learning As part of these contemporary concerns, the community service partnership model and within this, community service learning - has emerged as an important means by which higher education institutions can directly serve social development. The brief characterisation which follows corroborates the main claims of this paper. These are (a) that, in fostering community development and social equity, this model constitutes a complementary alternative to the entrepreneurialisation of higher education; (b) that the model (potentially at least) integrates and mutual enriches experiential learning, socially relevant research and community service; (c) the knowledge thus produced in the social and community context of its application closely resembles the socially distributed, applications-driven, Mode 2 knowledge production described by Gibbons; and (d) that, in contrast to growing managerialism, participatory knowledge production in the partnership model involves more collaborative forms of decision-making. The idea of service in higher education is not new, but is receiving much more intense focus currently as a policy option. Most institutions' mission statements identify community service as part of the universally-recognised tripartite function of the modern university, namely, teaching, research and outreach. Nonetheless, only recently has the community service learning and partnership model provided a systematic operational basis for pursuing this goal as an institution-wide initiative which combines community development and academic benefits. Community service learning (CSL) has grown rapid recently, especially in the USA (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Ward & Wolf Wendel, 1997). CSL is defined as 'a form of experiential learning in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development' (Jacoby, in Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 1997:1). Its distinguishing feature is the systematic integration of community service into the formal curriculum. CSL is closely associated with problem-based learning, especially in the Health Sciences. The practice originated within mainstream USA academia during the 1970s, focusing initially on outreach projects. During the late 1980s, a second phase attempted to incorporate community priorities more coherently and systematically into the curriculum. This was especially so in those applied, professional and vocational fields with intrinsic service and practicum components, such as in health, law and education. The 1990s trend has been towards an institutional orientation towards CSL, so that the benefits of enhanced learning, outreach and the fostering of civic awareness can be achieved across the board as an institution-wide initiative. The CSL 'movement' is now rapidly expanding. The USA National Society for Experiential Education has a long-standing commitment to CSL. The literature on CSL is growing, with several dedicated journals now in existence. Centres for CSL and institutional offices for community development are being established on many campuses. There is growing government, organisational and institutional support for the principles of CSL. The incorporation of service learning as a mandatory component of undergraduate programmes is currently being considered in the California public higher education system, as a result of the Governor's initiative. Claimed positive outcomes for students include: more effective learning, especially with regard to lifelong learning; the linking of theory and practice; enhancing career goals; improvement in measures of civic responsibility, changed perspectives of social issues and appreciation of others' cultural and socio-economic situations and personal efficacy; exposure to other cultures and race groups; critical reflection of own attitudes (Ward & Wolf-Wendel,1997; Perold, 1998). 80
While these benefits are intrinsically valuable, they should ideally be integrated into a social change and partnership model in order to contribute also towards basic community development and to integrate research activities. Recently, therefore, greater emphasis has been placed on the community partnership model, of which CSL comprises a key component. This model involves a three-way partnership between academic institution, community structures, and service providers (public, private, NGOs and CGOs). Ideally, the concern is not only with the effectiveness of student learning and research opportunities (and hence curriculum development), but also for community development through enhanced service. The model therefore provides an ideal opportunity to pursue the elusive optimal mix between Mode 1 disciplinary knowledge and core, outcomes based problem-solving competencies - a crucial issue in the current South African context. Clearly, the notion of partnership is central to achieving these goals. As in all social relations, partnerships are vulnerable to unequal power relations. Within these 'politics of partnerships', the interests of one partner (especially the academy) easily dominates. The ideal is to recognise and mediate the partners' differences in identities, roles, capacities and interests through relations of mutuality and reciprocity. This implies building capacity towards the joint ownership, design, control and evaluation of community service programmes so that the interests and needs of all three collaborating partners are addressed. Where successful, a partnership grounded on mutual relations provides reciprocal benefits. Integrated service, learning and research activities occur at an academic/service site located in the community. Context-rich opportunities are provided at these sites for experiential learning and applications-driven research (for students and staff alike, the latter both in disciplinary fields and in experiential learning), for curriculum development, and for community development. Service is enhanced and enriched by cutting-edge research findings. This is of import for the central concern of this paper: within the partnership model, the beneficiaries of knowledge production are three-fold. The ultimate political and social aim is equity and community development. As a means to this goal, learning, research and institutional development are also achieved. In practice, however, mutuality in partnerships is a highly elusive ideal. A recent discourse analysis of the current literature on CSL indicates an alarming preoccupation with student outcomes and institutional interests at the expense of symmetry, reciprocity and mutuality in partnerships (Ward & Wolf Wendel, 1997). The value of CSL appears to be perceived predominantly as a vehicle for achieving academic aims and bolstering the interests and power base of the academy rather than for fulfilling the goal of contributing towards social change. Implications for higher education institutions To achieve the partnership ideal, therefore, a fundamental shift is necessary for academics, from seeing the role of the university as producing basic knowledge and providing applied knowledge to help in the solution of problems, to one in which the university is jointly responsible for social change in partnership with relevant bodies in the community. Under this new social contract the institution becomes an advocate for social justice (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997). Based on experience in education outreach projects at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), these authors highlight lessons for higher education institutions in engaging in collaborative work within community partnerships as follows: Collaborative work often creates a conflict of institutional cultures; that political and community groups want to use the prestige of the university to enhance their agenda; that faculty members often have less experiential knowledge
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of the problem context than do teachers and reformers but compensate by using their theoretical perspectives; that failed experiments outside the academy are more visible than a failed experiment in a laboratory; that compromise is essential; that new forms of communication are needed to reach different audiences; that partnerships can be intellectually exciting and challenging; that faculty scholarship is enhanced; and that continuous support is needed for long-term impact (Braskamp and Wergin, 1997:7778).
Braskamp and Wergin argue that the success of such ventures depends on substantial reorientation of the mission and focus of higher education, particularly at research universities. These changes must begin, they contend, with a new social contract between higher education and the greater community, of which there is already growing evidence, Renegotiating the social contract implies dispelling the public perception that academic freedom is a smokescreen for furthering the private benefit of individual and institutional academic interests. The authors argue that the role of the modern university is to become more responsive to social (and not only market-related) problems and to function as a forum for the expression and negotiation of social discourse. Both of these functions have clear implications for the nature of faculty work and the focus of academic leadership. While there are greater demands to address social ills, the academy remains on the one hand increasingly preoccupied with the market ethos, and on the other largely inwardly fumed towards maximising and rewarding quantifiable publications output which is the currency of conventional academic practice. This separation of the academy from society 'has been conscious, deliberate, and defining' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:80). Without including communities in defining research goals and agendas, higher education institutions 'will become victimised by their own myopia' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:80) or, we may add, narrowly market-oriented. Encouragingly, against the tendency towards the increasing commercialisation and privatisation of faculty work, the authors identify the emergence of 'public intellectuals' who want to influence public policy. They wish to publish widely in nonacademic publications and the mass media, expressing their ideas in non-academic language. Present throughout the USA and often black and female academics, they are typically shaped by 1960s activism or are young faculty members who wish to integrate societal concerns into their personal and professional lives and to establish the social utility of research. They are informed by new particularist epistemologies by which truth should not be separated from personal experience. Thus, 'to the extent that the emerging perspectives of scholarship are both more political and more relevant, they parallel, without necessarily paying homage to, social forces pushing for change' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:83). In the authors' view, a key insight is that 'through partnerships, the research and instructional agenda can be intricately connected to the communities outside the academy' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:87). This provides the principal means of linking academic freedom with social accountability and responsibility, of escaping the insular sanctuary of the academy and of addressing the clamouring demands made on it by its social partners. In this way, the function of the modern university will be met: to be a 'very active partner in shaping its social relationship with society, being responsive while retaining its core purposes and standards' (1997:89). Braskamp and Wergin's account thus corroborates the partnership model as an alternative to the marketisation of higher education and resonates with Gibbons' notion of the relevance of Mode 2 knowledge production.
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Implications for knowledge production, learning and scholarship Part of the shift entailed by engaging in community partnerships is a fresh view of the relationship between theory and practice. Academic purists who define legitimate knowledge as theoretical in nature and the academic as the sole repository of this, must recognise and be informed by other valid forms of experiential, indigenous, tacit and pre-theoretical knowledge that are endemic to the non-academic and community context and that are therefore beyond the reach of theoretical academic research.3 Without romanticising the higher rationality of lay knowledge, which Weingart (1997:611) cautions against, the ideal approach would for these seemingly incommensurate knowledge forms to enrich each other in a complementary way. This is especially so in the developing world context, where the particularities of people's experience and the tacit knowledge which they have of their own contexts are vital for sustainable development (Parker, 1998). Collaborative partnerships do not therefore imply abandoning basic research or compromising rigour. On the contrary, faculty involved in partnerships realise that 'their own claims on the truth [are] rather fragile and incomplete' (Braskamp & Wergin, 1997:80). Faculty have to learn to bridge the gap between the meaning of research findings and the meaning constructed by those affected by the results, and between academic and political truth. The gap between 'needy' communities and 'knowing' campuses must therefore be dissolved and the charitable model must be supplanted by an assets-based social change model, which recognises and incorporates informal and indigenous knowledge production and capacities in communities. This involves the sensitive process of building mutually trusting relationships between academics and stakeholder groups in order to identify and collaboratively address complex problems (Ward & Wolf Wendel, 1997). Addressing the complex social problems embedded in community development partnerships involves a new mode of social application-driven trans-disciplinary knowledge production. Where this does occur, it appears to be similar to the Mode 2 type knowledge production which has emerged in higher education-industry partnerships. Community-partnership knowledge production not only involves the generation and application of research findings and available knowledge by the academy in community development programmes, but, importantly, also involves participation by community members in the research process, in setting research agenda based on needs analyses and in controlling and evaluating programme outcomes. The combination of formal and informal knowledge production implies an expanded sense of scholarship which includes and rewards not only conventional disciplinebased inquiry, but also, as Boyer (1990) argues, the scholarship of integration, outreach engagement and teaching, and, as Walshoek (1996) suggests, the notion of integrated teachers, scholars, professional service providers and researchers. Park (1996) provides a convincing argument for the expansion of the notion of scholarship along similar lines in order to accommodate and reward the unrecognised teaching, research, outreach and integrative work of women. In the South African context, this would apply equally to marginalised (black and other) academics in communityoriented programmes in the historically disadvantaged institutions. This points clearly to the value of linking teaching, research and community service. The importance and effectiveness of inquiry-based learning is emphasised by Clark st
(1997a), who suggests that the 21 century workforce will demand complex problem-solving skills amidst growing fluidity and uncertainty. The best pedagogical 83
preparation for this is 'discovery-based learning experiences' and being educated in a 'discovery-rich environment' (Clark, 1996:294). For these reasons, learning-bydiscovery, and teaching and learning by means of research processes should become the norm. While the close link between postgraduate studies and research offer particularly rich opportunities in this regard, inquiry-based learning should not remain the preserve of the postgraduate level and should increasingly underpin undergraduate studies as well. This is so in respect of the effectiveness of a research-based pedagogy as a learning tool and as a preparation for applying the acquired competencies in the world of work in addressing complex social problems. Research-based learning is effective learning, then, in producing the core competencies and skills necessary for the complexities and indeterminacy of the millennium. By extension, to the extent that programmes should increasingly be oriented towards social problem-solving and community development in order to realise the social purpose of higher education, the logic and policy value of embedding learning and curriculum development within community service partnership programmes is persuasive. This mirrors Gibbons' (1998) assertion of the importance of a trans-disciplinary, problem-oriented curriculum as the most effective way of creating the required skills and capacity to mount Mode 2 research. However, as indicated, the solid foundation of quality Mode 1 disciplinary knowledge and skills is a prerequisite. Taylor (in Perold, 1998) arrives at similar conclusions, providing a useful conceptual framework for CSL. Community service learning includes academic study, community service and structured reflection to integrate the study and service components. Three community service goals can be identified: promoting active democratic citizenship and communitarianism; utilising intellectual and other resources of higher education institutions to improve the lives of underprivileged communities through the provision of practical services; and infusing the curriculum with greater relevance through a focus on current social, economic, political and environmental problems. These three aims embody three essential components: the academic, the practical and the civic. Where these three intersect, the community service ideal is achieved theoretical knowledge and practical skills are integrated; community development is undertaken; curriculum development and research are linked and shaped by problems embedded in the community. Though many programmes aspire towards this ideal, few achieve it and remain oriented to two of the three goals. In analysing the interface between the academic, social and practical elements of higher education, Taylor raises important concerns about where it is epistemologically and operationally appropriate to incorporate practical service elements into academic study. He questions whether activities situated in the intersection of academic and civic concerns, such as political philosophy, ethics or jurisprudence, should necessarily incorporate a practical service component. Underlying the 'strong' view of experiential learning - increasingly evident in the debate on community service in higher education in South Africa - is the expectation that all concepts should be grounded in practical experience. Taylor argues that this is unworkable and might degenerate into crudities which reduce the new challenges facing higher education into simplistic forms of curriculum and pedagogy. He concludes that the successful integration of practical service activities with the academic analysis of citizenship issues depends on whether the practical element is really appropriate to the topic under study, on suitably available service sites and on efforts by faculty to link academic theory and practical manifestations. The link between the academy and service activities is less problematically encapsulated in professional training, which assumes a close interactive link between academic and practical knowledge and experience, between the conventional disciplines and problem-based practice. Internship, fieldwork and practical 84
placements are intrinsic to professional training in higher education. However, the question here remains: to what extent should academic work in other fields contain a practical component and to what extent should professional training contain a civic component? In conclusion, adopting the partnership model has clear implications and benefits for higher education. Its success depends on substantial shifts not only at the mission level, but also in terms of epistemological attitudes and academic practices, particularly at research universities. These changes entail a new social contract between higher education and the greater community, based on the conduct of applications-driven research which is integrated into teaching and outreach activities. It thus constitutes a complementary alternative to private, market-related entrepreneurialism. Case studies and developments in community partnerships and CSL in South Africa Given its political history, a strong community service ethos emerged in South Africa during the 198Os, as activist faculty attempted to link their academic pursuits to the anti-apartheid struggle and to make their expertise accessible to civil society (Cooper, 1992). Given this activist tradition, the current challenge is to ensure that academic knowledge and its local and indigenous counterparts are produced and disseminated as part of service activities so that practice can be improved (Kraak & Wooers, 1995). In this way, rigour and relevance can be linked. These, as Cooper (1992) argues, are not necessarily contradictory, as is often claimed by disciplinary purists. Community service is currently receiving close attention in South Africa, partly in response to the government's recent, decision to implement community service for medical, pharmaceutical and legal graduates, and partly as the consequence of the argument that 'community service in higher education has the potential to contribute to the reconstruction and development goals of the new government' (Perold, 1998:2). A review of the literature as well as recent case studies (Perold & Omar, 1997; Subotzky, 1998a, 1998b) reveals an interesting array of community service programmes and community service learning opportunities. These clearly are contributing towards social upliftment in diverse ways and, central to our argument throughout, constitute complementary alternatives to the marketisation of higher education. Predictably, the most developed of these programmes are in the health and other professional fields, but many also involve inter- and trans-disciplinary elements. The Afrikaans Pretoria University, for example, in 1993 established a semi-rural satellite campus about 50 km north of Pretoria. Here the university applies community service learning to provide a comprehensive teaching approach in which theory and practical experience are merged. The aim is to produce graduates better equipped to meet labour market demands. By integrating training with research and community service, the intention is to contribute towards the aims of the RDP. The campus is situated in a diverse environment comprising squatter settlements, industries and a rural area and lies adjacent to a hospital, a school for the deaf, a police training college and an industrial area. Courses are presented in medicine, education, agriculture, arts, architecture, building science and sport. The programme aims to contribute significantly to creating job opportunities in the communities and to provide basic services such as health care, teacher training, legal aid, housing, communication, social work, town and regional planning, landscape architecture and veterinary science. 85
Another well-developed partnership programme is the Mangaung-University of the Free State Community Partnership Programme. This combines primary health services, community service learning opportunities in the training of health professionals, and community development. Established in 1991, the project provides an impressive evolving model of an intersectoral, trans-disciplinary partnership between the community, academic institutions and provincial authorities, and extensive experience of overcoming the many pitfalls in establishing this. In serving the development needs of the population of about 300 000 in the impoverished Mangaung community and surrounding informal settlements, the programme involves 200 students and lecturers from the Medical School and the departments of Nutrition, Psychology, Physiotherapy, Agriculture, Small Business Development and Education. This is one of seven national community partnership programmes funded by the Kellogg Foundation. Similarly, the University of the Western Cape's Faculty of Dentistry Oral Health Centre was established in 1992 as a response to the oral health service needs of some 2.5 million people in the disadvantaged community in the greater Cape Town area. The Centre is a World Health Organization collaborating site for the training of diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate Dental/Oral Health students and oral hygienists. Community-based dental education is provided by 115 full-time and parttime staff at the Centre and at other sites in the greater Cape Peninsula as part of Faculty outreach programmes. Educational opportunities are provided to disadvantaged students from all regions of South Africa through the university's alternative admissions policy. Joint funds provided by the university and the regional government are used for training students and treating some 80 000 patients annually. Staff have also contributed towards local and national policy and planning of dental services. Likewise, University of the Western Cape's Public Health Programme and its Western Cape Community Partnership Programme run a variety of health personnel training courses, including postgraduate courses, within service learning contexts. A noteworthy agricultural initiative is the University of Natal's School for Rural Community Development which provides certificate, diploma and degree programmes in Rural Resource Management (Luckett & Luckett, 1997). This is linked to a Farmers' Support Group. Rural development practitioners are trained within a formal outcomes-based academic programme, developed in collaboration with the University of West Sydney, an agricultural college which has instituted radical reforms in curriculum and assessment. The focus is on the development of core competencies such as systems thinking, participatory inquiry methodologies, project initiation and development, oral and written communication skills and 'learning to learn'. These capabilities are developed through experiential learning in which placements in rural communities form an integral part. Open access and mobility is ensured by enabling multiple entry/exit points within the certificate, diploma and degree programmes. While the emphasis is on skills and outcomes, a research component is incorporated through problem-based community work, which is mentored by staff. Links have been established with regional councils and the Department of Land Affairs to develop long-term sustainable rural development. Within these projects, there is evidence that the complexity of community development is being approached through the inter- and trans-disciplinary approach mentioned by Gibbons. They clearly also provide opportunities for the integration of teaching and research within the community service setting. While there is some evidence in these cases of community service initiatives feeding back into curriculum development (Luckett & Luckett, 1997; Perold, 1998; Henning, 1998), formal knowledge production remains the weakest link, especially in departments which have heavy service and outreach loads, such as Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy. In the South African context, most of these departments are admirably 86
orienting towards community development, primary health care and service learning. However, research tends to be restricted to postgraduate (and to some extent undergraduate) project work, with staff research underdeveloped, especially where there are heavy service, supervision, administration and programme co-ordination loads. In some cases, time does not appear to be the only obstacle. The case studies suggest that skills and confidence, as well as appropriate knowledge and methods to turn reflective practice into formal research output, are lacking. In addition, there is little evaluation of community benefits, the methodology of which is challenging and problematic (Magzoub & Schmidt, 1996). Other problems relate to the duration of service placements, the quality and quantity of supervision, and the lack of adequate resources and planning. In many instances, the potential for formal research output is latent. Indeed, the development of appropriate research capacity-building models to remedy this and the fostering of a research culture under these conditions constitutes the focus of the planned major study mentioned earlier in this chapter. Interviews with a university-based teacher in-service programme focusing on wholeschool development indicated that there were eminent formal research possibilities embedded in the reflective activities conducted by practitioners in their quest for greater effectiveness. There is a valid research dimension to their practice which involves critical theorising about a number of key issues, such as the nature of organisational change, the power relations involved in programmes of this sort and so on. On the basis of clearer theoretical insights generalised from practice, further more effective change and school improvement interventions can be implemented and tested through evaluation. This clearly articulates the close relationship between theory and practice in this process. This kind of action research is related to Mode 2 knowledge production in that it is clearly generated in the context of application and is oriented to practice-based problem-solving. It includes researchers and change agents other than the formal researchers - namely the school teachers and managers involved - who contribute towards the research and change process. In addition to the informal knowledge production which is disseminated through the action research process in reflectively improving practice, in some cases teachers have collaborated with the university-based practitioners to produce formal research outputs in the form of joint papers. Through peer-reviewed and popular journals, these contribute towards improving school practice more widely. The pattern of informal knowledge production in action research described above corroborates Gibbons' view that knowledge production in the prototypical Mode 2 organisation is unpredictable. Creative teams identify and solve problems, which, because they cannot often be defined in advance, are not revealed in formal meetings and agendas. They emerge instead, Gibbons (1998:27-8) suggests, 'out of frequent and informal communications among team members'. In this way, 'mutual learning occurs within the team, as insights, experiences, puzzles and solutions are shared'. The community partnership model parallels this directly. This captures Gibbons' assertion that 'the sharp distinctions between academic and lay players in knowledge production have weakened because the latter play a key role as brokers (or even creators) of science' (Gibbons, 1998:20). This results from the fact that 'old demarcations are breaking down between traditional universities and other higher education institutions because both are embraced within the extended university', which - it may be added - also involves ongoing community/government partnerships. Linked to this, observes Gibbons, is the questioning of other traditional demarcations: those between theory and practice, science and technology and knowledge and culture. 87
A recent case study among various non-health academic departments in higher education institutions in the Western Cape (Kraak & Watters, 19954), revealed clear examples of Mode 2 practices in all four disciplines investigated: Engineering, Physics, Business Management and Anthropology. Of the cases cited as indicative of Mode 2, many failed to capture all of the defining Mode 2 criteria as specified by Gibbons et al. No clear conceptual boundary between applied, contractual, and multidisciplinary research and Mode 2 research could be drawn. Likewise, significantly for my purposes, it was difficult to distinguish between action research methods implicit in outreach and socially distributed Mode 2 trans-disciplinary knowledge. The authors conclude that a 'partial diffusion' of Mode 2 research practices was observable. A number of constraints contribute to this piecemeal growth, although there are also factors which are likely to facilitate and encourage Mode 2 research in the future. It is clear that some programmes investigated display some of the characteristics of new knowledge production, though they still form a minority of research undertaken and are embryonic and restricted in a number of ways. Given the various political and academic constraints and resistance towards new knowledge production, 'it is unlikely that Mode 2 research will flourish unless policy parameters are defined to encourage and facilitate it' (Kraak & Watters, 1995:10). The implications are that 'the higher education policy framework must seek to deepen these early beginnings, for . . , Mode 2 is critical both to the success of the RDP but also to the rejuvenation of our national economy as a globally competitive and knowledge-intensive resource' (Kraak & Watters,1995:17). It is noteworthy that, while South Africa's historically black universities are generally very poorly disposed towards functioning as entrepreneurial institutions as a direct consequence of the multiple effects of apartheid, excellent community-oriented programmes do exist which serve as models for community development partnerships (Subotzky, 1997, 1998a). The missions of historically disadvantaged institutions have always been closer to community concerns and they have had close links to the communities they serve. Academics in these institutions can potentially combine their tacit and explicit knowledge of these contexts and thus turn disadvantage into comparative advantage (Kraak, 1997; Subotzky, 1997). This is evident in an interviewee's comment in a major recent study of historically black universities (EPU, 1997:429): We try to use our disadvantages and change them into advantages ... especially if you look at our institution in the context of the new dispensation, the RDP and so on. I think we have an ideal opportunity to use our rural environment to do relevant research. Obviously we cannot compete with [the historically white research universities of] Wits or Cape Town in nuclear physics, and I don't think we should.
However, all institutions are strategically positioning themselves within the new and increasingly competitive higher education policy and planning context. As the case studies indicate, historically white universities, and especially the Afrikaans-speaking ones (who were historically more supportive of apartheid and whose future in the new South Africa is now threatened), are developing innovative community-oriented initiatives (Subotzky, 1998b). In South Africa currently, a major project (the Community-Higher Education-Service Partnerships initiative) is underway to establish pilot partnership projects at eight institutions. The ultimate aim is to replicate the model more widely, so that institutions can fulfil the White Paper's policy goal of contributing towards community development. A noteworthy aspect of this project is that it is accompanied by a leadership capacity-building programme at the master's level, in which three participating partners from each sector are enrolled. The modules of the programme and the assignments within them are designed not only to build the necessary 88
capacity in the three participating organisations, but also to form part of an integrated and systematic planning framework for implementation of the pilot projects. One module involved comparative cross-international research in the form of site visits to USA universities where community partnerships have been well established as institution-wide initiatives. The research and evaluation component (in which the Education Policy Unit at UWC is centrally involved), which will draw from these modules, should reveal insights about the obstacles and best practices involved in building capacity and in planning and implementing the partnership model. Concluding comments Clearly, the pressures and challenges of globalisation and their impact on higher education are here to stay. However, their effect is neither uniform nor inevitable and - where conducive political, economic, cultural and institutional conditions prevail, they can be critically challenged and mediated. To do this successfully, alternatives to the increasing currency of globalisation practices must be identified and strengthened. I have argued that amidst the strong trend towards the marketisation of higher education which is the direct outcome of these globalisation practices, the community partnership model is an exemplar of a viable complementary alternative. The case studies show that developments in the community partnership model in South Africa and elsewhere corroborate my contention that this model represents a significant counter-trend to the marketisation of higher education. The innovations identified in the case studies are directed towards the solution of complex social development problems and clearly constitute forms of applications-driven, transdisciplinary knowledge production, which closely resemble Gibbons' Mode 2, but which differ crucially in that they integrate and mutually enhance teaching, research and outreach. In this way, the community partnership model serves as an important site for actualising the social purpose of higher education and of countering the negative impact of globalisation on higher education. Footnotes: 1
2 3
4
A major project has just been operationalised on this subject. This is a collaborative study between the Education Policy Unit at UWC, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Stellenbosch and the Department of Philosophy of Science and Technology at Twente, involving Dr G. Subotzky, Prof. J. Mouton and Prof A. Rip as lead researchers respectively. The study focuses on the contribution of higher education to development in South Africa in the context of globalisation. It identifies predominant modes of knowledge production in higher education partnerships, with both industry and communities. This study provides an opportunity to examine empirically the extent to which changes in knowledge production in general, and the Gibbons thesis in particular, are occurring in the South African developing-country context. In the light of insights gained, the study will suggest appropriate forms of research capacity-building which are geared towards changing patterns of knowledge production. A pilot capacity-building project will be implemented, evaluated and modified where necessary with a view to wider replication. The present paper therefore represents work which is very much in progress. Interestingly and appropriately, perhaps, this phrase is reported by Gibbons to have been coined by the vice-chancellor of the University of Natal in South Africa. This attitude is caricatured in the apocryphal story about the university physics professor who was called to a farm to examine a perpetual motion machine developed by an uneducated farmer, which pumped water uphill endlessly without external energy sources. On witnessing the machine's successful operation, the professor was at first clearly taken aback, but quickly dismissed it by saying, 'Ah well, it's all very well that it works in practice, but it will never work in theory!' A revised version of the cited paper appears as a chapter in this book: Investigating New Knowledge Production: A South African Higher Education Survey - Ed.
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Chapter Six INVESTIGATING NEW KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION: A SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEY Andre Kraak2 Introduction A vibrant debate has begun in the international literature on knowledge production, centred on the premise that fundamental changes are occurring in the mode of production of new knowledge. Gibbons et al. (1994) have led this debate with their use of the concept of 'Mode 2' knowledge. The term Mode 2 refers to the rapid growth in recent times of trans-institutional, trans-disciplinary and problem-solving research. This chapter will briefly review the Mode 2 argument, and will interrogate the concept by investigating its applicability and relevance in the South African context. The paper intends to shift the Mode 2 debate away from ideal-type, abstracted formulations of Mode 2 knowledge to descriptions that are more localised and specific. The research methodology employed has been that of a short survey with interviews focused on four disciplines in four higher education institutions in the Western Cape, South Africa. The four disciplines examined are Engineering, Physics, Anthropology and Business School or Management Studies. Over 20 interviews took place at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of the Western Cape (UWC), the University of Stellenbosch (US) and Peninsula Technikon (Pentech - a polytechnic). UCT and US are historically advantaged institutions (HAIs) which have catered predominantly for privileged white students. In contrast, UWC and Pentech are historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) restricted by apartheid to enrol only poor black students. These racial inequalities and divisions still characterise higher education in the Western Cape today. A number of shortcomings in the research process require mention here. Firstly, the time available to do the fieldwork was extremely short: only one month. Secondly, there are a range of institutional inequalities amongst the three universities and Pentech which impact on the research field. For example, Pentech and UWC do not have Graduate Schools of Business, thereby necessitating the choice of a close cognate discipline: Management Studies. In addition, UWC does not have an Engineering Faculty. These institutional inequalities make comparative analysis difficult, and perhaps unfair from the vantage point of the historically disadvantaged institutions. Nonetheless, the survey will show that Mode 2 research does throw up exciting research possibilities for the HDIs, enabling them to overcome past institutional deprivations which have proven to be extremely difficult to deal with in traditional Mode 1 disciplinary research. Mode 2 assumptions underpinning the research project The research and this analysis are premised on a set of assumptions which argue that the greater proliferation of Mode 2 knowledge production is a beneficial development and should be encouraged. This goes against some of the literature on globalisation and knowledge production which views current developments in a negative light: a greater 'marketisation' of knowledge production, an increase in the 90
tension between teaching and research responsibilities, and an overall decline in the stature of the academic profession. In fact, many interviewees adopted this point of view. One UWC Physics lecturer was quite damning of Mode 2 research: The trend towards research partnerships and Mode 2 is rubbish. I see no reason why we need to follow these international trends. Private sector commissioned research is killing the role of universities to do basic research. This need to have everything immediately applicable means that nobody is working on new stuff. The role of the university is not to provide answers to society.
Doomsday views, however, are not the only position. On the contrary, it can be argued that the specific conditions which prevail in the current period (six years after the demise of apartheid in 1994) condition the terms upon which Mode 2 research can be done, and will provide truly beneficial opportunities for research development. The first conjunctural condition is that much of Mode 2 research - in this era of political transition to a vibrant democracy and healthy economy - is likely to contribute towards social and economic development. This argument is taken up later in the text. Secondly, in a society regulated by an emerging co-determinism, as is the case in South Africa today, consensual and co-ordinated market relations between the key social players - including all the knowledge players intrinsic to Mode 2 - will ensure that future knowledge production will not be driven by unmediated and rampant free market forces. The state and its social contract partners in structures such as the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) will ensure that new knowledge is acquired and applied to socially useful purposes. This is the positive challenge of Mode 2. Lastly, the already existing divide between teaching and research need not be accentuated by Mode 2 especially if, as Muller (1995) points out, good Mode 1 teaching and research are seen as a necessary precursor to Mode 2 knowledge production. This latter condition is not prevalent at many HDIs and must be established simultaneously with the growth of Mode 2 research. The evidence Institutional inequalities Evidence from the survey immediately throws up the institutional inequalities amongst the three universities and single technikon. Tables 1A to 1C reflect in tabulated form the information obtained during the fieldwork.3 The institutional inequalities reflected are typical of South Africa's current higher education landscape: high staff numbers, high publication output and lower student numbers at the HAIs with lower staff numbers; lower publication output and much higher student numbers at the HDIs. The detail in Tables 1A to 1C provides a descriptive background for later discussion, and will be continuously referred to. The discussion will now shift to a presentation of research project 'exemplars' which best reflect Mode 2 practices in each of the four disciplines at the four chosen institutions.
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Table 1A Academic Establishment per Discipline at Four Western Cape Higher Education Institutions*
Staff Qualifications HE Instit
Total
D
M
B
Dip
Other
Engineering UCT
114
47
US
112
46
19
UWC
---
---
---
---
---
---
Pentech
31
0
8
10
13
0
UCT
37
14
5
US
28
15
UWC
---
---
---
---
---
---
Pentech
12
1
3
3
5
0
UCT
8
5
1
US
4
1
1
UWC
13
5
3
1
Pentech
---
---
---
---
UCT
28
10
6
US
43
15
2
UWC
13
0
10
Pentech
8
1
1
Physics
Anthropology
1 Hon 2 Hon ---
---
Management Studies
1 Hon 1
2
3 Hon
*1996 figures D = doctorate; M = Masters; B = bachelors degree; Dip. = Diploma UWC has no Engineering faculty Figures for UWC Physics not available Pentech has no Anthropology faculty
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Table 1 B Student Enrolment per Discipline at Four Western Cape Higher Education Institutions* Student Numbers HE Instit
Total U/Grad
1st Year
2nd Year
3rd Year
B. Tech
Hons
M
D
Engineering UCT US
200
198
56
198
62
9
0
UWC Pentech
750
27
Physics UCT
864
733
73
15
16
14
13
US
1065
1000
30
20
5
5
5
UWC
---
Pentech
12001
Anthropology UCT
482
320
100
45
3
11
3
US
164
110
45
7
1
1
0
UWC
525
12002
420
100
3
2
0
384
150
Pentech
Management Studies UCT US
376
UWC Pentech
225
?
120
343
*1996 figures UWC has no Engineering faculty. Figures for UWC Physics and Management Studies Departments not available. Pentech has no Anthropology Department. 1 Only first-year service course students. 2 lncludes Sociology students. 3 H.Dipl, 4 AIM Dipl.
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10
Table 1 C Publication Output Per Discipline at Four Western Cape Higher Education Institutions* Publications Instit./ Discip.
Total
Books
Chapters
Articles
Conf. Papers
Univ. Publ.
Engineering UCT
273
3
11
56
158
45
US
244
0
3
33
175
13
0
0
0
0
0
0
UCT
38
6
US
20
0
0
4
16
0
UWC
11
0
0
6
3
2
Pentech
1
0
0
0
1
0
UCT
11
2
2
3
0
14
US
0
0
0
0
0
0
UWC
5
0
0
3
1
0
UCT
25
1
1
6
3
14
US
43
1
1
16
25
0
UWC
10
31
0
0
0
2
Pentech
0
0
0
0
0
0
UWC Pentech
Physics 32
Anthropology
Pentech
Management Studies
*1996 figures UWC has no Engineering Faculty. Pentech has no Anthropology Department. 1 textbooks
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Four disciplines and four institutions The four case studies were undertaken in late 1995 and early 1996. Although many of the institutional characteristics remain in place today, especially given the long life cycles of the research projects under review, caution should be exercised with regard to information pertaining to specific features of the four departments in the four institutions. Some details may have changed over the past three years. However, the general information provided in the boxes below, although dated, assists in constructing an analysis of research typologies in the South African context which measures the extent to which Mode 2 has penetrated local research practices. DISCIPLINE ONE: ENGINEERING At UCT Engineering, one of the key Mode 2 research projects is the Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics (CERECAM). It is an interdisciplinary unit involving Applied Mathematics and Civil, Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering. The project works in the area of computational mechanics. UCT owns an associated company, Finite Element Analysis Services (FEAS), which analyses stress factors for private companies. The project aims to became a centre of research excellence in the field, maintain international contacts and assist in resolving problems of national industrial importance. At US Chemical Engineering, a wider range of Mode 2 practices are clearly evident. One project is the 'water extraction' project funded by the mining industry. Aimed at improving the process of mineral extraction from a water medium and entailing neural networks, a field of artificial intelligence. Another project is the 'Internal Combustion Group' which is attempting to develop an alternative to high-polluting, petroleum-based motor vehicle engines. The project includes Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, along with environmental sciences and is funded by Sasol, Caltex and Nissan. In addition, in 1986 Stellenbosch Engineering participated in the formation of a Radar company along with other private sector investors, with the Defence Force as a major client. The company is situated in Stellenbosch's Technopark, and initially relied an the university's engineering staff and postgraduate students. Today it employs 50 engineers and has entered the export market. Perhaps most spectacularly, Stellenbosch Engineering has built a microsatellite called SUNSAT, with the aim of doing satellite mappings of land and climatic formations. The project also aims to inculcate an interest in science and technology among Stellenbosch school pupils. It was built by staff and post-graduate students, is funded by private sector companies such as Siemens, Altech, AMS, First National and the Foundation for Research Development (FRD, now incorporated with the National Research Foundation, NRF), and was launched into orbit by NASA in March 1999.
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DISCIPLINE TWO: PHYSICS Although Physics at Pentech is primarily a first-year service course, as part of the School of Science it contributes to the activities of three cross-disciplinary Units, the most important being the Environment Service Unit. This Unit aims to establish a model for community-based natural resources management. The project embraces many disciplines - physics, public health, dentistry, psychology and accounting - and is funded by the FRD, HSRC, Western Cape Community Partnerships Programme and Eskom. The Unit aims to establish a chemical water analysis laboratory and an interdisciplinary course in 'Community-based Environmental Education'. Work is currently in progress an an unmanaged waste site in Belhar, first undertaking a health impact assessment and then applying chemical engineering skills and management studies input. At UWC, the Physics Department is embarking on a solar energy (Photovoltaic) research project, which has cross-disciplinary linkages with chemistry and economics. Funded globally by the European Union, it has European university and privates sector partners; locally, UWC will co-operate with Rand Afrikaans University, the University of Port Elizabeth and Pretoria University. Eskom is interested in a linkage. A first global conference of its kind on Photovoltaic was held in South Africa in September this year. At both UCT and US, Physics Department academics are primarily engaged in pure Mode 1 disciplinary research.
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DISCIPLINE THREE: MANAGEMENT STUDIES UGT's Graduate School of Business has started an Institute for the Management of Technology, introducing a new trans-disciplinary field concerned with the commercial potential of differing technologies and their effective organisational utilisation. The Institute has done work for Sentrachem in developing a fully integrated technology and corporate strategy. It also has strong linkages with overseas universities and the European Union, although in South Africa it has not yet been successful in persuading the FRD and the Centre for Science Development (CSD, also paw part of the NRF) to fund this new field. The work of the Institute is perhaps a good example of 'cutting edge' trans-disciplinary knowledge that has not yet received full recognition locally. At Stellenbosch's Graduate School of Business, academics are engaged in drawing up the South African Competitiveness Report, a local follow-up of the World Competitiveness Report of 1994. The School is working with a consulting firm, Alan Tonkin and Associates (who have permission to use the World Report's research methodology and quantitative data), and with an advertising firm, Bates SA, who have questionnaire distribution expertise. Stellenbosch academics will do the analysis and report writing. The consortium will sell the report to private companies for profit.Given the absence of Schools of Business at Pentech and at UWC, the Management Studies Departments were interviewed, In contrast to the research work being done at UCT and US, academics and students at UWC and Pentech were engaged primarily in what they termed 'barefoot counsellors' - outreach activities aimed at assisting small black business managers with useful advise and at giving students opportunities for internships.
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DISCIPLINE FOUR: ANTHROPOLOGY Anthropology at UCT has been engaged in urban housing policy analysis in partnership with UCT's Urban Planning Research Unit. The project has linked ethnographic anthropology with urban planning methodologies. It received financial support from USAID and the CSD, and was linked to the Western Cape Community Housing Trust. The central research question has been to problematise current housing policy that is based on an assumption of a homogeneous population. The research has shown that given several differentiated forms of urban settlement and a high degree of population flux, there is a need to disaggregate housing policy to accommodate this diversity. In addition, as is argued by one of the researchers, 'these insights led us to find people working in other aspects of policy coming to the same conclusions about the need for disaggregation - in literacy, health, energy and social welfare policy. So we have planned a book as a grand finale to this project which will talk about diversity in the population of Cape Town linking these differing perspectives'. Within the combined Sociology/Anthropology department at UWC, two projects have strong Mode 2 characteristics. The first entails a national public health research project looking into 'Nutritional Intervention'. It comprises links with the Medical Research Council and funding from a Dutch NGO, 'NOVAC'. The field researcher notes that while the linking of anthropological/ethnographic techniques with the predominantly quantitative medical paradigm presented an interesting challenge, the emergence of a trans-disciplinary view did not emerge without major contestation of conceptual frameworks. The second major area of Mode 2 research is in the policy field of sustainable land resource management. A UWC research unit has been set up and is currently engaged in a 'dryland degradation' research project, bringing together European Union financial support, a number of international university partners, the South African National Botanical Institute, along with UWC, Venda and Namibian University researchers. The aim is to use satellite-imaging data aver time to look at changes in semi-arid Southern African land usage. The disciplines incorporated span GIS and satellite image interpretation, historical ecology, ecophysiology, anthropology and climatology. As one of the researchers argues, 'This must not be a 'clean' ecology, remote sensing or GIS project, but a truly integrated project leading to some kind of policy formulation for sustainable land use management'. In contrast, Stellenbosch's Anthropology department continues to live in the past, still wedded to the apartheid concepts of Volkekunde (the study of South Africa's diverse racial communities through an 'ethnic' lens) with no external linkages or research dynamism whatsoever.
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An overall assessment: a partial diffusion Although the research projects presented above display several of the characteristics of Mode 2 research, in general they form a minority of the total research undertaken in these disciplines - the latter being reflected in the figures in Table 1. Of those cases cited above as indicative of Mode 2, many fail to capture all of the defining Mode 2 criteria as specified by Gibbons et al. (1994): trans-disciplinarity, transinstitutional partnerships, plural financing, trans-academic regulation and management, and trans-academic evaluation and quality control: The only conclusion that can be reached regarding Mode 2 in South Africa, then, is that of a partial diffusion of such research practices. A number of constraints contribute to this piecemeal growth, although there are also factors which are likely to facilitate and encourage Mode 2 research in the future. These conditions of constraint and possibility will be returned to later. Applied knowledge and Mode 2 knowledge A further issue raised in the research survey was a concern by many interviewees that the distinctions drawn between applied, contractual and multi-disciplinary research on the one hand, and Mode 2 research on the other were not as clear-cut as implied by Gibbons et al. - who in fact suggest that the distinctions signify a new paradigm in knowledge production. Professor Martins, Dean of Engineering at UCT in 1995/96, gave perhaps a typical response to questions regarding Mode 2 research practices at UCT: It seems to me that the changes you are talking about happened in Engineering 50 years ago. I cannot conceive of working in a situation where one would even ask these questions now. The answers are a long time in the past. Actually, I think that in science and engineering the changes occurred probably in World War Two, particularly in the USA where the government started funding research in a very different kind of way and it became a relatively big business.
This may be partly true, especially with Engineering, which could be viewed as a Mode 2 trans-disciplinary phenomenon of the early post-World War era. However, Kraak (1995) argues that there are specific historical conditions since the late 1970s that make this knowledge phenomenon distinct. Among the factors listed are: the information technology revolution of the contemporary era, both a product of and facilitator of trans-disciplinary research; transformations in the global economy towards more knowledge-intensive production; the consequences of the Cold War era and its massive injection of funding into Defence-related applied research; the massification of the university system globally, which has created a whole stratum of expert knowledge workers located outside of the universities and able to engage in research practices alongside the traditional collegiate. Perhaps the most significant point, though, is its rapid exponential growth in the current period. This latter factor is what constitutes the paradigmatic shift. However, a more difficult conflation to refute, and regularly picked on by interviewees, was the difficulty of drawing a neat line between the 'action research' methodology implicit in much of the outreach work of universities, non-governmental organisations and civic movements in South Africa (that being to critically reflect on 'actions' or practiced applications undertaken), and the socially distributed nature of Mode 2 trans-disciplinary knowledge - the latter being produced in a partnership or team of players. Both activities are socially organised; both purport to be about knowledge or insight, but are they the same? 99
This difficulty emerged most succinctly in the interview with Ben Cousins, researcher in land reform policies based at UWC's Anthropology Department. He argued that: Different projects have slightly different required outcomes. The Land Development Project would definitely want immediate and short-term policy recommendations, alternative management plans. The Surplus Peoples Project aims to be policy relevant as well as to try and develop relations with the local communities who are asking what is in it for them. So it is not just about knowledge production. Rather, the interface between knowledge permutations and action is becoming increasingly blurred.
This interviewee raises a critical question that ruthlessly interrogates both the Gibbons et al. argument and current South African university practice. To what extent is 'outreach' generative of new knowledge and in what forms can it be measured and disseminated? Is it akin to Mode 2 research? The dividing line between outreach and Mode 2 is probably extremely unclear. However, there is clearly a dominant variant of outreach activity at South African universities which has been historically over-determined by the politics of the anti-apartheid struggle, but which is lacking in substantial new knowledge generation. We believe that a transition needs to take place in the form of university outreach so that it becomes more generative of new knowledge production. Later sections of this chapter will return to this critical question. A further dilemma arose in the research which had to do with the knowledge creation process and the moment of becoming 'trans-disciplinary'. What determines the outcome of a series of interactions between a range of disciplines so that the resultant insight becomes a single trans-disciplinary product that is not reducible to any of the prior contributing disciplines? Why does the outcome not rather become an additive construct made up of cyclical additions of separate disciplinary contributions to a joint research endeavour? Many of the research projects reviewed were precisely these additive phenomena and not truly trans-disciplinary products. For example, UWC's Dr Humphrey of the Anthropology Department was involved in a study of the skeletal remains of hunter-gatherers at a burial site in Kimberley, research commissioned by the Kimberley Museum. The disciplines of ethnoarchaeology (a study of existing societies in search of hints about the lifestyle of past ages) were applied. But a physical anthropologist, Dr Alan Morris of UCT's Anatomy Department, was then called in to give details of the physical nature and periodisation of the hunter-gatherers. The two disciplines co-exist in an additive way; they do not yield to a new trans-disciplinary construct. This was evident in other fields, for example in Engineering, where joint projects occur routinely, but where the resultant knowledge constructs appear to be additive, not trans-disciplinary. The same may be true for Pentech's Environment Service Unit and its 'waste management' project cited earlier: first, a health impact assessment, then chemical engineering (water treatment) analysis, and then management analysis. Reassessing the Gibbons typology The Western Cape survey has highlighted further shortcomings in the characterisation of Mode 2 research. Gibbons et al. (1994) define a Mode 2 typology which has five central criteria, as cited above. However, these five conditions on their own are not sufficient to fully define the processes and resultant content of new forms of knowledge production. The typology lacks an awareness of the power relations and personalised social networks that constitute the academy and permeate all disciplinary and cross-disciplinary activity. The model also ignores 'conditions of staff employment' : a variable important enough to warrant a sixth criteria. Mode 2
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research is dependent on a critical mass of tenured 'expert' senior staff and a cadre of capable post-graduate students (and perhaps part-time staffers) who can be contracted into the research. Each of these limitations require further elaboration. Rendering struggles around knowledge invisible The description of Mode 2 by Gibbons et al. is almost totally silent on the political dimensions of new knowledge production. Their typology entails a seemingly voluntarist partnership between stakeholders - between a homogenised collegiate, NGO researchers, civil servant policy formulators and corporate research and development (R&D) personnel - who are assumed to have common interests in pursuing the same research agenda. Trans-disciplinarity appears to be a relatively painless and instantaneous activity of teamwork and social partnership. This is clearly a highly problematic position that clashes with much of the literature on politics, power, ideology and knowledge production. It is even more unsustainable in the South African context where knowledge production, teaching and learning have been so highly politicised. Mode 2 research is fundamentally an emergent social form of organising and distributing new knowledge, incorporating an array of partners who enter the knowledge production team with differing social and political agendas. Mode 2 is intrinsically a political relation and its knowledge outcomes are not likely to be automatic or uncontested. This became very evident during the course of the survey. The political terrain has mediated the South African research process at a number of levels. The broad macro-political level has been the most determining of pressures. The racial and capitalist apartheid system from the late 1940s up to the early 1980s was predicated on a relationship of privilege and power which incorporated white Afrikaner farmers, emergent Afrikaner entrepreneurs, Afrikaner workers, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Afrikaner church), and of course, Afrikaner white male intellectuals - whose task it was to legitimate and sustain the policies of this power bloc - the Mode 2 of yesteryear. So, for example, disciplines such as Anthropology at Stellenbosch, which taught Volkekunde, were important components of this legitimisation. And Stellenbosch's Engineering Faculty did work for the military - including the radar research cited earlier. This 'networking' between strata of the collegiate and those in power has of course changed considerably since the heyday of apartheid. Today, there is a new collegiate elite who have considerable access to the high echelons of government; they are the new policy formulators. Work being done at UWC's Anthropology Department on land reform and public health policy is indicative of Mode 2's reliance on these networks of power. In sharp contrast, Stellenbosch University's Anthropology Department is now totally marginalised, with no external linkages and no research commissions. In essence, Mode 2 research is entirely dependent on personalised networks of access to power - be it with government or with the corporate sector - and this access is extremely sensitive to the political allegiances of the academy. The political terrain impacts on knowledge production in a further, yet radically different, way. The research practices of those that were in opposition to apartheid, especially in the social sciences, were shaped by that very contestation in two ways. The first response seems to have been that most of their Mode 1, traditional disciplinary concerns were continuously moulded by the all-pervasive influence of apartheid - as occurred at UCT's Anthropology Department which focused primarily on the socio-political impact of apartheid on peoples lives. This research alignment excluded the possibility of substantial Mode 2 contracts with other knowledge players - such as the research parastatals and the corporate sector - who were less critical of apartheid and therefore not interested in their work. The second response has been 101
far academicians to over-emphasise their community service or outreach activities and to engage directly in the struggle against apartheid and in the quest for an improved way of life, thereby underplaying their research responsibilities (although some Mode 2 research work was commissioned by the emerging civic and trade union movements of that time). This phenomenon will be discussed later. Either way, each of these responses excluded the possibility of large-scale knowledge partnering and Mode 2 research. The political terrain has shaped the manner in which the private sector has related to other knowledge players in the past. In general, with a few exceptions, the private sector has a poor record in terms of investing in education and training, research and development, and developing indigenous technological capacity. (See Kraak, 1996, and Kaplan, 1991.) The behavioural traits of South African business can be characterised as being short-term, narrow, seeking only high quarterly profits and not inclined to large investments in research and development which may pay dividends only in the long run. In addition, the evolution of new forms of economic production which are more knowledge-intensive - the 'flexible firm' and 'flexible specialisation' - has been slaw and uneven (see Kraak, 1996). All in all, under these conditions, it is nit surprising that there is little evidence of large-scale Mode 2 research in the past. The political terrain also functions at a level internal to academe: it provides the basis for the fundamental contestations of ideas and theoretical positions which are intrinsic to disciplinarity. Contestations occur both within and between disciplines. As such, this contestation places a severe obstacle in the path of Mode 2 knowledge, for although conditions may now be ripe for new forms of social organisation in the production of new knowledge (a more consensual or co-determinist political environment allowing for more enduring research partnerships), the traditional hostilities between and within disciplines is not also automatically resolved. Transdisciplinarity still remains a difficult goal, as the testimony of many researchers in the field revealed. In one case, an anthropologist from UWC who did work with medical academics from the MRC found the experience difficult, as the medical paradigm remains 'dominating' and 'controlling', 'very quantitative', and 'unresponsive' to the qualitative nuances of an ethnographer: I have come to the stage where I think that trans-disciplinary research is absolutely impossible because it is so fraught with difficulty that I don't know whether you can actually do it, but on the other hand I know that it must be done.
Unfortunately, Gibbons et al. fail to discuss these political aspects of Mode 2 research. However, in the South African context, given the macro and micro determinants as sketched above, and given a largely traditionalist and conservative collegiate, it is unlikely that Mode 2 will flourish unless policy parameters are defined to encourage and facilitate it. 'Conditions of staff employment' as another critical variable Table 1A highlighted the now often cited inequalities between HAIs and HDIs in South Africa. However, there are two additional indices of performance that are as important to the discussion about Mode 2. These are the total number of postgraduate students and the rank-seniority of academicians. The former is reflected clearly in Table 1A; the HAIs have an abundance of Honours, Masters, and in some disciplines, PhD students, but the HDIs have far fewer. Similarly, the rank of academicians is equally skewed. Table 2 shows that the staffing establishments between the HAIs and the HDIs are almost in complete inverse proportion to each other. While UCT and US tend to have most of their staff at the senior levels (Professor, Associate Professor, and Senior Lecturer), UWC and Pentech tend to 102
have a large majority of staff employed at lectureship level. These distinctions have emerged historically because the HAIs have emphasised their Mode 1 research excellence, and have consequently recruited top-rated scientists at professorial, associate-professorial and senior lectureship levels, whilst the HDIs have since the mid-1980s become mass higher education teaching institutions, prioritising staffing growth at the lectureship level. These distortions emerged also because staff-student ratios have been kept low at the HAIs (allowing a Mode 1 research culture) and because apartheid privileged these institutions with abundant resources in the past. These two indices of performance are critical to the emergence and success of Mode 2 research. As suggested earlier, Mode 2 is primarily a new form in the social organisation of knowledge production: it has become a partnership of knowledge players, the interactive results of a team effort. And two critical players in the team are, firstly, senior academicians with prestige and expertise in their respective fields - people who will be commissioned by external players; and secondly, capable postgraduate students at Masters and Doctorate levels, who via part-time research contracts will do much of the field or applications research work. A glance at UCT and Stellenbosch's Engineering Faculty - as shown in both Tables 1A and 2 - will reveal that they have both large numbers of senior academicians and an abundant supply of post-graduate students. Both institutions are dynamic participants in Mode 2 research. In sharp contrast, Pentech's Engineering Faculty and its Management Studies Department, and UWC's Management Studies Department have a concentration of staff at lectureship level (all primarily engaged in teaching) with few post-graduate students. All of these departments have minimal Mode 2 research output. Mode 2 research activity must be defined in terms of the staffing establishment and institutional budget - that is, in terms of the number of tenured senior staff, the number of post-graduate students, the capacity to contract out research (having the necessary money, project supervisory expertise, and relevant contacts), and possessing a facilitating rather than constraining balance of workload between research, teaching and outreach. The current combination of these elements at the HDIs are extremely prejudicial to goad research output.
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Table 2 The Rank of Academicians in Four Disciplines at Four Western Cape Higher Education Institutions Total
Prof.*
†
ASPRO* or Director & Heads
SL
L
Admin or Other
ENGINEERING UCT
167
19
23
18
32
75
US
77
23
8
40
0
6
36
0
6
7
17
6
UCT
36
6
4
7
1
18
US
28
4
4
7
0
13
UWC
17
3
1
3
4
6
Pentech
12
0
1
2
6
3
UCT
8
1
3
1
1
2
US
43
10
4
3
0
26
UWC
13
1
1
3
6
2
UCT
28
6
2
?
?
10
US
43
10
4
3
0
26
UWC
13
1
1
3
6
2
Pentech
8
0
1
1
6
0
UWC Pentech
PHYSICS
ANTHROPOLOGY
Pentech
MANAGEMENT
*1996 figures * Prof. = Professor; ASPRO = Associate Professor; SL = Senior Lecturer; L = Lecturer
The next section examines those factors which facilitate and constrain the production of Mode 2 knowledge.
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Factors facilitating Mode 2 research The post-apartheid era and Mode 2 One of the strongest possibilities for an increase in Mode 2 research is the current ANC government's commitment to social and economic reconstruction for the millions of impoverished black people disadvantaged by apartheid policies. In the 1994-1996 period, this programme of action was referred to as the 'Reconstruction and Development Programme' (RDP). Although this popular catchphrase is now in disuse, the new state is still committed to bringing about meaningful social and economic redress through the work of its main social welfare ministries. As a consequence of all of this reconstruction activity, many higher education researchers are now being contracted to do policy and development planning research - either for the state or for key NGOs in the field. The four discipline-based case studies revealed these new developments clearly: for example, Pentech's Environment Services Unit; UWC's Solar Energy project in the Physics Department; and the land reform policy research in the Anthropology Departments at both UCT and UWC. As argued in Kraak (1995), RDP-linked research will usher in co-operative partnerships between key social players and institutions on a scale never before witnessed in South Africa's divided history. More importantly, reconstruction and development research will lead to the proliferation of Mode 2 trans-disciplinary knowledge practices in the fields of science and technology (S&T) as well as in the social, health, agricultural and environmental sciences. By their very nature, reconstruction and development activities will be generative of new knowledge derived directly 'in the context of application'; they will employ trans-institutional and plural teams of experts. Many projects will be plurally funded - and thus will meet many of the criteria defined by Gibbons et al. as pre-requisites for Mode 2 research. However, the simple act of instituting community development projects by a social welfare state in association with development NGOs and a few academicians in the team is not of itself automatically generative of new knowledge. The latter component must be recognised as a key function of the academicians involved, a function that must transcend the rather populist interpretation of 'community outreach' in the past. Future policy levers need to encourage 'knowledge-based' outreach activities. The new policies of the FRD and NRF The Foundation for Research Development (FRD - now incorporated within the National Research Foundation, NRF) has played perhaps the most important role in the generation of new knowledge. The FRD has made a conceptual distinction between 'directed' and 'open' research, the former emphasising predetermined research areas aimed at meeting clearly defined national needs (the RDP and a competitive export sector being top priorities), and the latter aiming at strengthening the national knowledge base without restrictions on the freedom of individual researchers to pursue questions they regard as important. Within the broad ambit of this philosophy, the FRD (1995) developed three operational categories of research it would support: Competitive research: in science, engineering and technology enhancing the strategic knowledge base relevant to national development needs; encouraging teamwork at disciplinary interfaces and in multi-disciplinary areas Corrective action: human resource development and research capacitybuilding in previously disadvantaged communities; fostering a research culture at HDIs 105
Academic-industry co-operative research: making industry internationally competitive; establishing effective technology transfer processes between higher education and industry; encouraging synergistic collaboration between industry and higher education in the development of new technologies; promoting a culture of innovation through the support of relevant and challenging projects The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) has adopted similar principles in the formulation of the country's 'National System of Innovation' (NSI). A key ingredient of the NSI is the Innovation Fund, which is intended to support and encourage research and development. As was indicated in Chapter One, the Innovation Fund aims to facilitate the financing of problem-oriented research involving participants from many disciplines (DACST, 1996:30-31). The Department of Trade and Industry and the 'THRIP' programme The work of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) aver the past five years has primarily been to bring about a dramatic shift in policies on industrial strategy, international trade and investment. The main focus of the new policy has been to attempt to overcome a range of weaknesses in past trade and industry performance. Amongst these weaknesses are the low level of commitment by industry to human resources development (HRD), research and development (R&D) and the promotion of best practice (DTI,1998:17). A central component of the new industrial strategy is its policy on technology promotion and innovation support. The DTI (1998:45) argues that it is in this domain where direct state intervention is required: There is clear theoretical and empirical demonstration of the fact that, if left to the market, the level of investment in generating new advancements in technology would be less than is socially optimal.
Governments must intervene in the acquisition and absorption of technologies. This they can do by strengthening the capabilities of local enterprises to initially select appropriate technologies and then bargain for the optimal transfer of technological capacity and the acquisition through training of locally based 'know-how'. Governments can assist local firms in tying conditions to foreign direct investment that induce multinational corporations to increase local design and development activities. The DTI has formed the 'Technology Transfer Agency' to provide this kind of assistance to local enterprises. The DTI has also introduced the 'Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme' (THRIP), which is administered by the NRF. THRIP has a number of objectives. Firstly, it facilitates and funds the increased participation of higher education and science council researchers and students in industrial innovation, technological adaptation and commercialisation. Secondly, THRIP encourages the formation of stronger linkages between companies in undertaking joint R&D work. And lastly, THRIP promotes technological development in the small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector. THRIP operates by matching funds that are invested in innovation research by private companies. In a recent supplement on 'Innovation and Industrial Investment in Research', the Weekly Mail and Guardian (1999) provided a number of examples that illustrated the beneficial impact of the THRIP programme: There have been some tangible success stories recently in the form of products: a new engine part developed for Volkswagen China, solar panels cheaper than the currently imported kind, a micro-satellite now circling the earth, pharmaceuticals and a unique process for extracting sunflower oil, borne out of an investment in research by a Free State farmer.... There are a number of big projects in various sectors that have unprecedented
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collaboration from a range of partners. Telkom, for example, spearheaded a programme that has established 12 centres of excellence in information technology, electronics or telecommunications countrywide. Each centre is supported by Telkom, by another company in the electronics and communications sector, and by one or more tertiary institutions and THRIP.
By 1999 over 500 projects at a cost of R70 million had been supported by THRIP. The following four examples illustrate the application of some of THRIP's central objectives: applying research to resolving developmental problems; strengthening partnerships between Higher Education and Training (HET) institutions, science councils, business, government and civil society institutions; and combining a range of scientific disciplines in the search of solutions: A research project in Richards Bay is aimed at rehabilitating sand dunes devastated by the mining operations of the Richards Bay Mineral Company (RBM). The research team includes a zoologist and several ecologists from Pretoria University. Funding is provided by RBM and THRIP. A total area of 600 hectares has been rehabilitated so far. The research coming out of the rehabilitation project has been evaluated internationally. At the University of Pretoria, biochemistry postgraduate researchers are working on a project commissioned by the pharmaceutical company, Adcock Ingrain, to develop a pharmaceutical product for use in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis (TB), especially in AIDS patients. The research project, a joint partnership between Adcock Ingrain and THRIP, has filed three international patents in the past five years. In 1995, the team discovered some of the antibodies produced against the fats and waxes of the tuberculosis bacillus. In 1996, Adcock Ingrain filed a patent on a process discovered by the research team in which large masses of these fats and waxes are purifed from the bacilli in the laboratory, aiding the research process. And in 1998, the team discovered that the body's interaction with a certain protein helps to reduce TB infection. South Africa already has the deepest mines in the world. Now the gold mining industry is looking at going deeper - as deep as five kilometres below the surface of the Earth. It is estimated that the gold resources at depths of three to five kms is equal to those recovered from the reefs of the Witwatersrand basin during the past century, However, in the past, deep-level mining has been difficult, particularly because of problems such as scalding heat and high rock pressure. The 'Deepmine' project launched in July 1998 has a budget of R70 million for the first three-year phase. Mining houses collaborating on the project include Anglogold, Gold Fields and Durban Roodepoort Deep. Research institutions, government, labour and universities are playing a crucial role. During the first year, 45 tasks involving 200 researchers were established, and 50 of the researchers registered for postgraduate degrees. Their research covered fields ranging from industrial sociology, physiology and psychology, to mining and mechanical and rock engineering. A special focus in 1999 was the establishment of centres of excellence in deep-level mining research at universities and technikons. If the Deepmine project succeeds at ultra-depths, gold mining will continue to provide work and wealth for South Africa well into the next millennium. Electrical engineers at UCT have developed portable radar technology that will be used in trench digging in the USA. Its uses also include the detection of anti-personnel mines and boreholes. The radar is an interesting combination of cellphone technology, radar signal processing, and PC hardware and software. USA-based company Ball Aerospace funds the project with support from THRIP, Once the software applications have been developed, the radar will 107
be able to be hooked up to the Internet via a cellphone. This will enable someone kilometres away to analyse information from below the ground. Steps are already under way to set up a company at UCT to hall the intellectual property rights for the radar. The project has given 18 postgraduate students, as well as engineers and technicians, a chance to gain hands-on experience, thus making them highly attractive to the industry (Weekly Mail and Guardian, 1999). All of the above THRIP examples, as well the guidelines of the NRF and DACST, are entirely in alignment with the requirements of Mode 2 knowledge production, especially their emphasis on reconstruction and development work, multi-disciplinary teams, industry-higher education partnerships, technology transfer and innovation. The incentives provided by the DTI, DACST and the NRF are all likely to serve as catalysts for the growth of Mode 2 research. However, these funding incentives alone are unlikely to bring about a substantial shift to Mode 2 knowledge production in isolation from other changes to research cultures at higher education institutions. In particular, a whole range of institutional and structural constraints need to be overcome through appropriate policy levers if Mode 2 research is to flourish. Six such constraints are identified and discussed below. Constraints on Mode 2 Viewing the binary divide through a Mode 2 lens The binary divide between universities and technikons is a major problem far Mode 2. This divide is premised on a functional differentiation between the role of universities the acquisition of the skills of science) and technikons (the application of technologies). These divisions are clearly evident in the survey. Firstly, as Tables 1 and 2 point out, the technikons is deprived of both a senior stratum of expert staff with doctorates and masters degrees, and a large cadre of postgraduate students, who together are essential team players in Mode 2 types of partnerships. The technikon philosophy of 'Co-operative Education' is really a placement model for young diplomates which is not equivalent to the dynamic research 'interactivity' between disciplines and 'contexts of application' as signified by Mode 2. Secondly, the survey highlighted the weak Mode 1 foundation which prevails in the technikon sector. For example, the Pentech School of Science offers Physics only as a one-year service course to radiographers, dieticians and dental technicians. And yet this is a disciplinary field which is a foundational element in the construction of Mode 2 expertise; without higher levels of expertise in Physics, little technology innovation is likely to take place. Similarly, Professor Van der Walt, Dean of Engineering at Stellenbosch, estimated that the Mathematics component in the training of electrical engineers at US and Pentech differed widely, perhaps by a margin of 30% less course work at the technikon. Technikons focus on teaching technology, that is, teaching a specific knowhow: for example, the technology of how to fill one hundred bottles of wine. But universities don't teach technology, we teach engineering techniques that result in technology. So at technikon they are taught to apply existing technologies. They do Mathematics, but not at a basic [pure] level, but rather, they learn how to use formulas. University students focus on Mathematics so they can look at developing new technologies.
Technikon students are trained to engage the world of work in a passive and static way, learning to apply yesterday's innovations and technologies in today's environment. In contrast, university engineering students need to learn a foundation of Mode 1 Mathematics to equip them to innovate for tomorrow's technologies. 108
Unfortunately, the transition to more knowledge-intensive forms of economic production have made these rigid distinctions obsolete. All engineering professionals should be trained to position for tomorrow's innovation requirements. Thirdly, the 'Co-operative Education' system of placement is really a 'shadowing' or apprenticeship model, not unlike artisanship training. It is about learning the ropes of the profession via induction. Some might even say it is cheap labour exploitation as is the case with apprenticeship induction. Mr Solomon, Head of the Management Department at Pentech, confirms these concerns when he describes how some employers - Nationale Tydskrifte in this case - have raised worries about the poor foundation of basic skills Pentech students carry into their internship; weaknesses with computer skills, elementary statistical analysis, report writing and communication skills. On critical reflection, this 'shadowing', no matter how useful in the preparation for careers, is unlikely to be generative of new knowledge production and innovation. 'Outreach' not generative of Mode 2 The problematic surrounding outreach activity has already been discussed. It remains an obstacle to Mode 2 research only insofar as there remains in existence an over-politicised variant of outreach which emphasises specialist assistance to community groupings in isolation of a conscious determination to be generative of new knowledge production. The policy challenge, then, is to encourage the development of 'knowledge-generative outreach'. Good examples of outreach which is not generative of new knowledge are the 'Barefoot Counselling' projects established in both UWC's and Pentech's Management Studies Departments. Mr Solomon from Pentech, describes the model: Each third year student in a three-month slot from April to June gets placed with NGOs and they assist the NGO, whether it is with accounting or how to keep track of things. They also adopt an informal entrepreneur and they visit him throughout the year. The student basically gets a feel of how to do a consultancy.
However, there are indications that outreach projects are beginning to assert a conscious research component to their programmes. For example, Pentech's recently-formed Community Projects Office (CPO), one of Pentech's three multidisciplinary research units, has a commitment to document and disseminate the analysis of its own practice - in this case, community housing and infrastructural development. A brochure publicising the CPO maintains: With most communities and NGOs focusing their concern on innovative methods of housing provision, we are concerned that these are not being documented and analysed while the developmental process is still underway. Given the fact that this project is intended as a pilot study we believe that it is important to build a research component into the process. The CPO and technikon staff are ideally suited to undertake research an innovative planning, housing design and implementation methods. In addition, feedback can be given to academic departments on possible curriculum improvements directed at developmental needs.
It is this latter approach that should be emulated by other outreach projects. A traditionalist collegiate Mention has already been made of the role a traditionalist collegiate can play in constraining the growth of Mode 2 trans-disciplinary knowledge. UWC's 1995 submission to the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) highlighted the role of the academic department as protector of disciplinary interests: 109
The most common constraint on trans-disciplinarity is academic territoriality and the associated fixation on departments as the only organisational form for promoting academic activity. Territoriality arises both from the security that a conventional definition of a discipline affords, and from the survival exigencies of a department.... As long as departments are the primary points of identification for academics, this problem will persist. We need to acknowledge that a departmental structure has the virtue of providing individual academics with a 'safe' academic home; a set of authorities and colleagues, who, because of their shared commitment to an identifiable academic discipline, should be able to work together harmoniously in teaching programmes, and who can critically encourage and evaluate each other's academic work collectively. The downside, however, is that departmental structures reinforce the distinction between 'outsiders' and 'insiders' to the academic discipline. Criticism from 'outsiders' can be discounted as the ignorant responses of those who don't know the discipline. Criticism from 'insiders', particularly those recognised as authorities, has to be taken seriously. Because of the link between departments and the idea of an academic discipline, departments have a tendency to insist on their independence and often resent control by Faculty Boards, or even the Senate. Departmental territories tend to be defended against intrusions or take-over bids from other departments and departmental boundaries are, consequently, fairly impermeable, bath to other academic disciplines and to pressures from outside the academy. This impermeability goes entirely against the thrust towards Mode 2 transdisciplinarity (UWC, 1995:22,23).
The degree to which this kind of academic politics and knee jerk resistance to any form of trans-disciplinarity prevails in South African higher education is difficult to measure, but the survey picked up elements of it, most specifically in some opposition to the new terms for NRF funding. In addition, observations from some of the academic planning departments at each of these institutions are that traditionalism is alive and well, although there have been some major innovations in, for example, the establishment of a range of multi-disciplinary Schools at UWC (Government, Public Health and Environmental Sciences] and at Pentech (the three multi-disciplinary Units already discussed]. Policy levers will need to be adopted to facilitate the ease with which Mode 2 research can be undertaken and transdisciplinary teaching programmes institutionalised. The scarcity of 'the research commission' Outside of engineering, the evidence in the survey indicated that there were not that many opportunities for research commissions, especially from the private sector, the largest potential benefactor. Reasons given for the paucity of commissions from the private sector included: Those companies that could be potential fenders were often multinational subsidiaries who did not operate R&D offices in South Africa, and who did not feel that they had to commission local research. Confidentiality clauses often disallowed any publication arising from the work of research commissions, rendering the 'product' invisible to the public debate in that particular field. A narrow and short-term view held by many South African companies toward technology transfer and innovation strategies resulted in little being spent on R&D. There are generally few formal sponsorships and partnerships between South African companies and technical colleges, technikons and universities.
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Clearly, broader macro-economic, international trade and industrial policy regulatory mechanisms are going to be required alongside educational changes to ensure an integrated package of policies which will oversee an increase in R&D work in South Africa - and more research commissions for South African researchers. The effect of teaching loads on Mode 1 and Mode 2 The on-going massification of South African universities and technikons, and especially the HDIs, is likely to hamper the production of Mode 2 knowledge if not contained This is primarily because the heavy teaching load hinders the development of sound Mode 1 teaching and research which is a prerequisite for Mode 2. Evidence from Pentech and UWC confirms this, with staff complaining that they have no time for research activities because they have very large classes to teach and administer. Perhaps more profoundly, these expansionary pressures are slowly transforming the HDIs into teaching institutions with staff growth at lectureship level to accommodate such teaching - as seen in Table 2 - with far less growth in senior staffing expertise to undertake and lead Mode 2 research. This not only has repercussions for higher education but also for the chances for our national economy to become more globally competitive. Little evidence of regional higher education partnerships One disturbing feature discovered by the survey is that little pressure appears to be emanating from the managements of the four higher education institutions in the Western Cape for regional co-operation and rationalisation of resources and expertise. The rhetoric may be there, but in fact groups such as the NRF and other funders/NGOs have engaged in more systematic development of incentives to encourage regional sharing of expensive 'multi-user' research equipment and research partnerships. The laissez faire approach to regional networking among the four institutional managements will need to change. Conclusion It is clear that Made 2 knowledge production is happening in South African higher education, although perhaps still embryonic and restricted in a number of ways. Nonetheless, there are also positive signs of stimulation and expansion, most notably the state's programme of reconstruction and development and the innovative steering mechanisms of the NRF, DACST and the DTI. Mode 2 provides exciting new linkages between university-based researchers and the wider society. The higher education policy framework must seek to deepen these early beginnings, for Mode 2 is critical both to the success of social reconstruction and to the rejuvenation of our national economy as a globally competitive and knowledge-intensive resource. Footnotes: 1
2 3
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at an international conference entitled Reorganising Knowledge, Transforming institutions: Knowing, Knowledge and the University in the Twenty-first Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 17-19 September 1999. Kathy Watters carried out the field interviews for the survey cited in this chapter. Gaps in the data in Tables 1A to 1C are due to the relevant information not being provided by the institutions at the time of the fieldwork.
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Chapter Seven MODE 2 KNOWLEDGE AND INSTITUTIONAL LIFE: TAKING GIBBONS ON A WALK THROUGH A SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY Jonathan D. Jansen Introduction Since the end of isolation, South Africa has been besieged by international trends, innovations and ideas clamouring for policy attention in the reconstruction of apartheid society. Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in the field of education policy. It was not surprising, therefore, to witness the ready consumption of Michael Gibbon's powerful ideas about new modes of knowledge production among a small but influential group of South African policy scholars.1 This group of highprofile scholars came to exercise a very powerful influence in making higher education policy in post-apartheid South Africa. Unsurprisingly, the documents of the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) and the subsequent Education White Paper 3 on higher education (DoE, 1997) and the White Paper on Science and Technology (DACST, 1996) bear the unmistakable fingerprints of Gibbons and his colleagues, These critical documents make it clear that a new mode of knowledge production is at play, and that higher education planning, programmes and funding should move in the direction of encouraging such innovative ways of producing knowledge.2 In the section on 'Research', Education White Paper 3 (DoE, 1997:31) is explicit: ..,the nature of the research enterprise has undergone radical change through: •
the development of multiple sites of research and knowledge production which are wholly or partially separated from higher education, including industrial laboratories, corporate research units, parastatals, statutory research councils, and NGOs, or through collaboration among these research organisations;
•
the impact of trans-disciplinary and trans-institutional research;
•
new forms of communication - the information highway - which have accelerated and widened access to data and research findings .
The same document holds that accountability processes in research extend beyond 'peer reviews' and incorporate indicators such as industrial innovation and national development needs. The research system, therefore, must ...keep abreast with the emerging global trends, especially, the development of participatory and applications-driven research addressing critical national needs, which requires collaboration between knowledge producers, knowledge interpreters and knowledge managers and implementers (DoE,1997:31-32).
I refer to Education White Paper 3 in some detail, not simply to demonstrate where such powerful policy ideas in higher education come from, but to inquire whether the ready acceptance of the propositions of the European scholar, Michael Gibbons, matches the realities of institutional life in South African universities.3
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For Gibbons, knowledge carries the following features: it is trans-disciplinary, problem-oriented, application-based, team-driven, multi-site, partnership-based, socially useful, heterogeneous, quality controlled, reflective and responsive, and less hierarchical than disciplinary knowledge of the kind produced in universities (Mode 1). Contributors to this volume amplify each of these characteristics.4 How Gibbons describes institutional life Universities, according to Gibbons, are insular institutions familiar with his Mode 1 form of knowledge production, That is, universities tend to retain the conventional disciplines and their specialisations in teaching, research and curriculum. This 'disciplinary structure of knowledge' translates into a specific organisational form: segmented departments remain the defining administrative units for academic work. There is little co-operation with other knowledge producers and institutions outside the academy. Furthermore, universities define who participates in this disciplinebased system, how they are evaluated or accredited, and by whom (the peer system). In Gibbons' (1998:9) words, This structure provides the guidelines for researchers about what the important problems are, how they should be tackled, who should tackle them, and what should be regarded as a contribution to the field. In its social dimensions, it also prescribes the rules for accrediting new researchers, procedures far selecting new university faculty, and criteria for their advancement within academic life.
In other words, Mode 1 is a closed system in which, until recently, universities held the monopoly in providing training, credentials, and knowledge production. But the same universities, argues Gibbons, are under pressure to change. Massification has changed the traditional client base of the university, with more students demanding education and with more mature students seeking lifelong learning through continuing education programmes. International competition has added further pressure for change, forcing universities to become more concerned about knowledge production, innovation and the relevance of their activities to the external environment. The explosion in technology and information sciences has created a new skills base within the traditional university and forced changes in the curriculum. As a consequence, the arts and sciences have declined, and the 'enterprise professions' have become dominant as reflected in areas such as business, management and accountancy. These changes in the external environment have also altered the internal organisation of universities, what Gibbons (1998:24) (and others) call 'a managerial revolution in higher education': ...the university has moved much closer to an industrial pattern of organisation with senior management teams and strategic plans, line managers and cost centres.
These changes, together with the diversification of research funding and the demand for specialist knowledge (and knowledge producers), have not only challenged the traditional university, they have brought more institutions into being in what Gibbons calls 'a socially distributed knowledge production system.' Suddenly, universities have become only one of many kinds of institutions involved in the knowledge production game. How should the traditional university respond? The first implication of these challenges for universities, says Gibbons, is that they have to learn to share their resources (physical, intellectual and financial) with other kinds of knowledge-producing institutions. This of course is difficult given that universities held the monopoly among knowledge producers, and the need for 'strategic alliances' is not always recognised in such institutions. 113
A second challenge for the traditional university is to persistently seek collaborative relationships with other knowledge producers. In Gibbons' (1998: 42) terms, 'creating a presence for themselves in [a] range of problem contexts which facilitate the attainment of their institutional goals' . Occasional, sporadic involvement with knowledge partners now becomes a continuing experience as the problem context changes and new needs and expertise arise. A third challenge, according to Gibbons, is for academics to become accustomed to changes in their work environments. Being locked in the same institutional laboratory or office no longer works. Travel and movement into and across different institutional contexts become the norm. As the 'context of application' changes, so does the environment in which the academic works. A fourth and related challenge is for institutions to begin changing the system of rewards and the traditional career paths for the Mode 1 academic. Success and progression within the parameters of a particular discipline gives way to achievement and recognition in trans-disciplinary contexts. Funding patterns would have to shift as well, encouraging innovation in application contexts. And the very standards of evaluation and accreditation would change to accommodate and encourage Mode 2 forms of knowledge production. A fifth implication concerns the nature of the undergraduate curriculum. Teaching the basic sciences is commonplace in universities across the world. But massification and globalisation have changed all that, leading to new mission formulations that include ... discovering new knowledge, applying and testing knowledge, transmitting and diffusing knowledge, dialoguing with knowledge stockbrokers (Gibbons,1998:44).
The undergraduate curriculum is up for grabs, having to respond to new and applied problem contexts that cannot be addressed through single-discipline contributions. Social purpose and relevance demand more than intellectual content; they require skills application in real-world contexts. Taking Gibbons on a walk through a South African university I find the Gibbons argument fascinating. But does it provide an intellectual framework to describe what happens inside a South African university? Does it offer a realistic appraisal of unfolding events in and outside South African universities, events that may be too small to see clearly but nevertheless promise to unfold into this grand reorganisation of knowledge production foreseen by Michael Gibbons? In attempting to engage same of these questions, I would like to locate myself in the argument. I am an academic administrator (at the time of writing), responsible for academic matters at the University of Durban Westville (UDW) - a South African university serving disadvantaged students and bearing all the fingerprints of an underdeveloped institution created by apartheid. In 1999, I had the privilege of leading the academic restructuring of this institution in response to two powerful changes in the external environment. First, like all South African universities, UDW experienced a dramatic drop in student enrolments, the immediate effect being a decline in the state subsidy to the institution - by far the major source of revenue to the University. Fewer matriculants were graduating from high school with university-entry qualifications. More private colleges, with international roots and linkages, were offering more stable campuses and more vocationally-oriented qualifications. Technikons became more popular destinations for students seeking work-related degrees and diplomas. The threat to enrolments forced a strategic rethink of what we were doing, how well we were doing it, and who we were doing it to (sic)! 114
Second, UDW found itself responding to new legislation and policy for higher education emanating from the new government. Significantly, this legislation required greater responsiveness to community needs, increased inter-disciplinarity within and across institutions, more co-operation with regional institutions (universities and technikons), and curricula aligned with changing technological demands and economic competitiveness - all a consequence of globalisation. As mentioned earlier, this Mode 2 type logic found its way into policy and legislation through disciples of Gibbons active in shaping post-apartheid higher education. What happened? I wish to start by taking Gibbons to the Faculty of Engineering at UDW, a segment of the university that was a particularly strong candidate for 'restructuring' - if not closure. On the one hand, student numbers were low, student failure rates were high (something penalised in the state subsidy formula), and staffing costs were inordinately high - in part because of salary subventions offered to professional engineers teaching in universities. The deficit was not only high (several million rand per annum), but was sustained over multiple academic years. A crisis loomed even as the university was burdened by the fact that closure would mean the end of the only historically black university offering engineering education. In searching for solutions, various university leaders stumbled on the Warwick Manufacturing Group that offered a model of engineering education showing promise within the South African context. Studied, refined and adapted to the South African context, the Morgan University Alliance took the lead in developing the so-called 'Warwick Model' at UDW. The following represent critical features of this new model of engineering education: The model represented a partnership between business and industry, a South African university (UDW), the Morgan University Alliance (a South African group acting as facilitator of faculty exchange programmes and universitybusiness partnerships), the MUCIA Global Group (a partnership of several top North American Universities offering modular-based engineering and business training on demand), and the Warwick Manufacturing Group (offering technical assistance, consultancy support and accreditation). This model was recommended and supported by government, with the office of the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology providing initial consultancy support and contact with Warwick. The model brought together the UDW Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Faculty of Engineering, and the Faculty of Science. The GSB's involvement resulted from the recognition that increasingly an engineering graduate required business skills, including financial management and marketing, to be able to function effectively in the private sector. The Faculty of Science was involved because of its interest in and gradual movement towards an applied science programme within the mainly discipline-based physics and chemistry qualifications. The model required that engineering education be offered strictly on the basis of a business venture between UDW and the facilitating partner, the Morgan University Alliance. This meant that modules in engineering would be offered on a strict cost-recovery basis with specified profit levels. If less than specified numbers of students were attracted, then the modules would not be offered. That is, no deficits would be accumulated; profits remained the bottom line. The model is based on complementary functions and specialisations offered by different partners in what is called 'the partnership programme'. The university (UDW) provides the professors who teach the modules. The Warwick alliance facilitates the travel of international consultants (professors at USA and UK universities) to teach those modules for which local expertise is not readily 115
available. The industrial partners provide the 'live laboratory' within which engineering students (employees of the firm) 'learn while they work' and 'work while they learn'. The university (UDW) creates a 'centre of excellence' on the main campus in which cutting-edge research tailored to the emerging needs and priorities of contracted industries is conducted and fed back into that industry. Postgraduate students thereby find a home within a university to conduct advanced and relevant research before returning to their workplaces. One such example is the already established Centre of Excellence in Rural Telecommunications, funded by ESKOM. The model means that the UDW professor who could previously assume tenure for life, now has a career shaped by the availability and relevance of his or her expertise to modules influenced and shaped by the demands emerging from industry. The professor is hired on a contract basis to fulfil specific tasks on pre-designed modules. But the professor also has the option of raising funds to establish a research 'centre of excellence' and to attract postgraduate students into that centre for degree purposes. The model assumes (as should be evident from earlier descriptions) that the engineering students are working employees of a particular industry. These industrial partners therefore do not lose their staff to five to seven years of theory-biased training on a distant campus. Rather, the students are trained in the workplace in application contexts immediately relevant to their daily operation. The model is based on intensive and ongoing negotiations between the different partners. This is expensive and inevitable. Industry has to 'deliver' the students to this innovative training programme and pay the costs of such development. The university has to agree to running an engineering programme from a distance, and the staff have to be persuaded that constant travel to and location within industry would displace the office- and campusbased tradition with which they are familiar and comfortable. Crucially, staff would have to be persuaded that short-term contracts would replace life-long tenure. Under what conditions might this happen? I believe that 'the partnership degree' as outlined above describes a strong version of Mode 2 knowledge production. But did it work? To some extent it is too early to tell, since the model was to be introduced in academic year 2000, and implementation is currently underway. In the next section I wish to evaluate, albeit tentatively, the model even as it is being implemented, as a way of testing the Gibbons thesis against the routines and behaviours of institutional (university) life in South Africa. There can be little question that increasingly, South African universities are beginning to accommodate Mode 2 knowledge forms within their institutional programmes. This accommodation, however, is small and uneven. In the University of Pretoria, for example, Mode 2 knowledge forms thrive and expand and may well become, over the next decade, the predominant form of knowledge production. At most other universities, especially the historically black universities, there are at best small pockets of Mode 2 knowledge forms, if any. At UDW there are one to three Mode 2 recognisable knowledge forms, but little else. A correction that must be made to the Gibbons thesis, therefore, is the highly uneven dissemination of Mode 2 ideas even within the same national context. The 'developing country' footnote in his main works cannot assume homogeneity given the deeply entrenched historical traditions and inequalities facing countries like South Africa. But leaving the extremes, what does the UDW case suggest about the Gibbons thesis within institutional life?
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The UDW experience suggests that the outcome of initial Mode 2 type interventions is by no means clear. The underlying teleology in the Gibbons thesis is indefensible, and for a simple reason: it under-estimates the complex organisational and cultural arrangements that define institutional life. At UDW over the course of about 12 months the struggle to replace the Mode 1 dominant curriculum and research orientation was fiercely resisted by most, if not all, professors in the university. This resistance appeared to fade in the context of the business-driven logic of the Warwick model that in fact promised to erase deficits within fixed timelines and ensure the long-term viability of the Faculty of Engineering. The real threat of closure did bring the senior professors of Engineering into countless numbers of meetings to discuss and design the partnership model. Indeed, some senior staff together with representatives from the Morgan Alliance met over many days to finetune the partnership model. But the wheels came off for several reasons, the most important being the response of engineering academics at UDW, which could be summarised as follows: The engineering academics were not prepared to abandon the four traditional disciplines (chemical, electrical, mechanical and civil engineering). They were trained and socialised within their disciplines, and any venture into transdisciplinary opportunities would be made tentatively, and in limited ways, from the security of the discipline. It became clear that many (though not all) academics simply could not comprehend, let alone buy into, the new intellectual demands of the partnership model given their disciplinary roots. The engineering academics claimed the sanctity and authority of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), as the agency likely to scuttle any attempts to move into innovative engineering education associated with the Warwick model. Now one could argue, with some legitimacy, that ECSA was simply 'used' to protect disciplinary turf. But it remains clear, in fact, that ECSA acceptance of this model was likely to constitute a major battle given the conservative tradition this institution seeks to protect. In any event, external accreditation could be achieved from international affiliates, so that in a worstcase scenario it was unlikely that ECSA could prevent the model from being implemented. The engineering academics realised that implementing this model - operating the partnership model on strict business lines with clear profit margins - made staff retrenchments inevitable. This fact constituted the major basis for resistance to the model, even though it was seldom expressed in such explicit terms. The existing model offered protection, even though there were clear demands from within the traditional model for more cost-efficient ways of delivering engineering education. The engineering academics understood that the new model required a more active role in recruiting students and funding for research centres of excellence. Their very employment depended on the assumption of new roles and identities. Salaried, permanent or even long-term contract employment was now dependent on success as teacher, researcher and entrepreneur. And these centres of excellence typically required a broader integration of crossdisciplinary involvement than the 'big four' fields. The new model, in short, entailed unacceptable risk in the conditions of work. Apart from the views of engineering academics, there were other limitations imposed on this model. Points raised often within the Strategic Planning Task Team (SPTT) of the University, the body driving academic policy innovation, included the following: Can the same conditions hold for UDW/South Africa as for Warwick/UK with respect to industry involvement? Are South African industries innovative enough to respond 117
to such a partnership model? Are there enough industries willing to make students available to what was essentially an experimental programme? Would industry be willing to commit the scale of resources required to make this model viable? Such questions remain to be answered. At the launch of the Partnership Programme at the ESKOM Centre in Midrand, Johannesburg in 1999, there were no hard commitments made by the many 'captains of industry' present, even though all appeared impressed by the innovation. Now this may change, but at the time of writing (February 2000), there does not appear to be a groundswell of practical support for the idea. Our assumptions about South African industry, its needs, priorities, requirements and openness to innovation may, in fact, be misguided. There is, however, another feature of institutional life that explains the weak response from academic engineers. The partnership programme was developed without any changes in the incentive and reward structures of the University of Durban Westville. While the threat of closure brought people to meetings, the traditional system of progression remained in place. The staff appointments and promotion system worked on the assumption of a full-time, campus-based educator moving gradually from lecturer to professor over many years. There is no incentive for inter- or trans-disciplinary research or teaching. There are no rewards for cooperative ventures or partnerships. No salary adjustments have been made to attract or reward staff who establish centres of excellence in trans-disciplinary research. In other words, the entire system still favours the traditional academic pursuing the mainstream career path established in the 1960s. In fact, to move outside of this established system is perceived as exposing yourself to risk and failure: what if your expertise as one trained in conventional disciplines was simply ignored in a market amply supplied with international academic engineers 'on-call' for module delivery at short notice by the Morgan University Alliance? Similar problems have been observed in trans-national studies of university-community partnerships: Such efforts required to achieve institutional change are unlikely to be maintained ... unless the operating norms and reward systems are altered to accommodate such activities (Marullo & Edwards, 2000:905).
A further concern that inhibited smooth implementation of the partnership model was the fact that it assumed the disappearance of the first-year engineering student fresh from high school. The partnership model, as initially described, was quite explicit about the fact that the engineers to be trained are full-time employees of firms to be trained within the infrastructure and resources of industry. This created a dilemma for the University since its mission is to build and expand capacity among young people denied opportunities for training and employment in the past. Moreover, the fact that young engineering students would not form part of the day-to-day life of campus was not very attractive to some key players in the university community. After all, the University had over time established a very expansive and costly infrastructure of laboratories, computer networks, office space and equipment that would become obsolete (except for postgraduate study) with the partnership model. Given these tensions between the traditional model and the partnership model, what happened at UDW by the end of 1999? First, the University Senate was presented with a dual model for offering engineering education. A campus-based model offered by traditional academics would co-exist with an industry-based model led by academic entrepreneurs. This dual model created considerable confusion within Senate. The insistence by the Vice-Chancellor and the SPTT that the two budgets be consolidated within a coherent programme with two component parts was simply not possible. The more we tried to force cohesion and conversation between the two
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models, the more we realised that their base assumptions about engineering education, the identity of the engineering academic, and their assumptions about students were so radically different, that the models could only exist in isolation from each other. Consider, for example, the issue of student identity. Ideally, the modularised engineering curriculum could be used to teach students in both the traditional and the partnership model. This means, for example, that consultant academics from the USA or UK partners would conduct the teaching of a particular module to both groups of students at the same time. The problem is that the campus-based students would be first-time university learners without any work-experience and a (perhaps) mediocre high school education. Such students would need intensive academic development support and foundation modules in science and mathematics before they could productively engage high-level engineering modules. On the other hand, mature students already working and with considerable practical experience of an engineering environment would need a much more challenging curriculum building on their prior experiences. This would mean a different curriculum for two different groups of students based on very different education and employment backgrounds. In short, in the realities of South African university life, Mode 2 oriented models of teaching and curriculum face serious threat from the power of existing institutional arrangements. This raises another question about Gibbons' assumptions relating to knowledge production in Mode 2 style. I am not sure that the UDW partnership model would in fact have led to the production of new knowledge which was 'heterogeneous' and 'trans-disciplinary' in Gibbonian terms. The simple fact of a partnership does not automatically translate into Mode 2 style knowledge production. It might facilitate such a trend, but it might not. It seems to me that a crucial element in the Mode 2 debate is the readiness and orientation of the partners to engage in new forms of knowledge production. In other words, one could in fact have a vibrant partnership in which the qualities of knowledge and knowledge production are multi-disciplinary with a simple technology-based application devoid of theoretical and non-empirical elements. Indeed, there was little evidence in the terms of the alliance between UDW and other partners that the quality of knowledge production was itself an issue of concern, The primary rationale for the partnership degree programme was organisational rather than epistemological: The conventional education delivery platform is not meeting the technical skills requirements for industry. Industry is concerned about the lengthy incubation period required for graduates. Degree programmes are perceived as being too narrowly technical and too technically narrow - there is too much rigidity. There is a large untapped human resource potential in the form of people who have worked for many years in industry. A corporate university would be created with competitive advantage.5 The only reference to knowledge was the somewhat marginal observation that 'knowledge changes quickly (shortening of knowledge shelf life), and that a globally competitive operation requires continuous learning' (Gibbons, 1998). Similarly, the argument that community outreach and development in itself constitutes a Mode 2 form of knowledge production (as in the Subotsky contribution to this book) is highly problematic. Organisational formatting or modes of delivery 119
should not therefore be equated with, or even considered pre-requisite for, Mode 2 type knowledge production. Are these constraints associated with partnership models uniquely South African or peculiar to developing countries? It is striking that recent assessments of universityindustry partnerships are far more cautious, even sceptical, in parts of Europe and North America. Such caution has direct implications for the Mode 2 vision as articulated by Gibbons and others. One major review of university-industry (UI) partnerships claims that: the status of the debate about Ul relationships is one in which the university and governmental science policy advisors are uncertain as to the potential impact of such relationships for academia (Hellstrom & Jacobs,1999; see also Matlay & Hyland, 1999, and Burnham,1997).
Posing the question, 'Are universities ready for partnerships?', Robinson and Daigle (1999) argue that partnerships tend to underestimate 'institutional readiness' with respect to differences in vision, commitment, culture, risk, power and adaptability among partners. As in the UDW experience, 'the greatest challenge is how to get everyone in on the act and still get some action, a serious hurdle to partnership formation' (Robinson & Daigle, 1999:6). It might be worthwhile in future studies to examine more systematically the programme of such partnerships in relation to Mode 2 experiences in developed nations. Conclusion There can be little question that Mode 2 type innovations are emerging at the periphery of institutional life in South African universities. Medical schools increasingly require problem-based curricula from the moment young doctors are trained - i.e., 'learning in the context of application'. Some Schools of Education require their preservice graduates to enter classrooms for extended periods of time in the first year of study, rather than final (fourth) year, as is the case at UDW. But such innovations are dwarfed by the status quo, the power and status of disciplinary science within most South African universities. I have tried to make the argument that unless there is a radical shift in the complex of institutional arrangements that govern and underpin ode 1 knowledge production, then there is little chance that advocates of Mode 2 will witness the kinds of changes anticipated by Gibbons and his colleagues. In this respect, it is important to distinguish Gibbons the prophet (what might happen in the university of the 21st century) from Gibbons the documentalist (what is happening in universities throughout the world, displacing Mode 1 forms of knowledge production). Viewed from inside institutional life at the turn of the century, there is little evidence of a substantial shift in the ways that South African universities and their counterparts produce knowledge - even though the Gibbons thesis might yet 'come to pass.' It remains to be seen.
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Footnotes: 1 2 3 4
5
I count among these eminent scholars persons such as Ahmed Bawa, Nico Cloete, Joe Muller, Mala Singh, Andre Kraak, George Subotsky, and others. Recent policy reviews by some of the same group of Gibbonians continue to mark progress in higher education against his main theses. See Cloete and Bunting (2000). All references to Gibbons in this chapter are taken from his paper, 'Higher Education Relevance in the 21St Century',1998 (Final Draft). Trans-disciplinary: drawing on multiple disciplines, crossing discipline boundaries; Problemoriented: solves problems, generating in problem-solving contexts; Application-based: applied and generated in real-life contexts; Team-driven: draws on groups of knowledge producers; Multi-site: team members located in different types of institutions; Partnership-based: forges joint ventures/partnerships between groups/institutions; Socially useful: has social or commercial value; Heterogeneous: empirical and theoretical, cognitive/non-cognitive elements; Quality controlled: dispersed across sites and expertise (beyond simple peer review); Reflective: responsive to economic and social needs; Less hierarchical: flatter structure of accountability, with transient organisations. From presentation notes an the UDW Partnership Degree Programme (A Joint Venture with Morgan University Alliance in Association with the Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick). Provided by Dr Roy Marcus, Morgan University Alliance, 1999-2000.
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