Triple Jeopardy

Words: 1361
Pages: 6

Summary: ‘Triple Helix or Triple Jeopardy? Universities and the Social Relations of Knowledge’ is a chapter authored by Terry Wotherspoon for the book, “The Age of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Universities, Knowledge and Society”. Explaining a rather complex dynamic, the author has outlined in the chapter the intertwining relationship among two dimensions; 1) relationship between government and universities, and industries and dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion; and 2) the knowledge based economies fostering social exclusion. The central theme of the chapter is that in the contemporary times, knowledge is being treated as a commodity, instead of as a social service, or a public good, which in-turn is creating gaps at the societal level. …show more content…
Explaining further, the chapter unfolds that the universities have moved away from the traditional purpose of research and academics. The booming number of new universities, and renewed advocacy for knowledge that has been labelled as ‘third generation of universities’ by other scholars, however, the author has labelled them as ‘third mission’. By third mission, the author claims that the universities are now keener in developing relations with external communities and partners, often at the expense of creating tensions within the academic community over fiscal, social and political resources. In addition, the third mission as outlined by the author is the licensing, patenting and using of research in commercial areas in order to generate fiscal …show more content…
The chapter is authored by Michael W. Kpessa. The central theme of the chapter is the evolution of public policy and involvement of the knowledge based actors in the public policy making and their impact on the public policy making. As outlined in the chapter, in the previous discourse of public policy making, only bureaucrats were the actual policy makers involved in the public policy making domain. Social sciences and policy sciences was never part of the actual policy making process. However, the spread of knowledge based economy opened the gateway for the knowledge based actors to influence public policy making. According to the author, now the focus of the public policy has shifted from cost benefit principle to policy learning and knowledge transfer. The policy arena now, includes a diverse group of people from the epistemic communities (as outlined by the author as; think tanks, individual experts, and groups of individuals, transnational actors, universities and research institutes), NGOs and experts who are now impacting the public policy. In addition, the new ideas in the field of policy learning are being transferred from developed countries to developing countries. Thus, the policy ideas are flowing in all directions across the