The market oriented university and the changing role of knowledge

The development of corporate-university linkages occurs within the orbit of two major influences, the information society and the globalization of capital. The presence of the information society builds great pressure towards the production and transfer of knowledge. The economic contraction of recent years is juxtaposed against the globalization of capital which demands that productive enterprises compete on a world wide scale. Universities are not exempt from this dynamic as they too are propelled toward a market orientation. This process leads to a series of conflicts within our universities which define the parameters of the transformation.The first part of this paper discusses these areas of development and conflict within the market university: 1) autonomy and collegiality, 2) the market and the university, 3) ideology, 4) globalization and privatization, 5) pluralism. The second part focuses on the role of knowledge within market university and the change from social knowledge to market knowledge. The focus here includes: 1) the social context of knowledge, 2) science, research of knowledge, 3) knowledge as property, 4) the transfer of knowledge. It is in this context that a new public policy for universities must be charted.